South Dakota
Pace of Medicaid enrollment remains slower than expected – South Dakota Searchlight
Fewer people than expected are signing up for Medicaid through an expansion backed by voters in 2022, and the state Department of Social Services is adjusting its budget to reflect the slower pace.
That’s at least partially because the state hasn’t publicized the expansion. Most enrollees sign up when they have a medical issue and need coverage to help pay for it, DSS Deputy Secretary and Director of Operations Brenda Tidball-Zeltinger told the budget-setting Joint Appropriations Committee this week.
Medicaid expansion opened the subsidized health care program to people whose incomes sit at 138% of the federal poverty level or less, which is up to $41,400 for a family of four or $15,060 a year for a single person.
Enrollment for Medicaid expansion opened on July 1, 2023, after South Dakota voters approved the expansion in 2022.
The appropriations committee typically has one budget hearing for each state department during the regular legislative session. For DSS, the committee set aside a second meeting date explicitly to dive into Medicaid and Medicaid expansion.
Initially, state officials projected that about 57,530 people would be eligible for expanded services, Tidball-Zeltinger told the committee. But those figures were pulled from 2015 data, and assumed that all eligible residents would sign up.
“Now, as we examine and have a few months of data in terms of how many people have enrolled in the program, we’re really revising that,” Tidball-Zeltinger said.
At the end of December, she said, the state had 17,520 people on the expansion enrollment list.
Based on that slower uptake – enrollments have grown a little more than 26% each month for the last three months – Tidball-Zeltinger told lawmakers that about 40,000 people will have expanded coverage in 2025.
Those people are mostly adults without children, she told the committee. That group makes up 67% of the expansion population, the rest being parents. Sixty-five percent of enrollees also qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps.
Minimal outreach
Another figure offered during Monday’s meeting in Pierre caught the attention of lawmakers: 80%. That’s the number of newly enrolled Medicaid participants to have signed up with a medical claim.
“Oftentimes people come to us when they’ve got a health care issue, or they come to us through a provider as they’re seeing them,” Tidball-Zeltinger said.
Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls, pressed the deputy secretary on why the agency hasn’t been more proactive in seeking out eligible adults.
“I can see billboards about vaccinations, and I can see billboards about STDs, but I have never seen any advertisements or any proactive community health workers that are out in communities as a result of DSS encouraging enrollment in those populations,” Duba said.
The department doesn’t intend to advertise, Tidball-Zeltinger said, but there are community organizations encouraging sign-up. The Community HealthCare Association of the Dakotas has worked to guide potential enrollees through the process.
The department sees providers as partners in sign-ups, as they are often the ones who suggest that coverage might be available when someone shows up seeking care.
“We have done a lot of stakeholder webinars and communication work with our partners,” Tidball-Zeltinger said.
Duba pointed to North Carolina to suggest that South Dakota could do more. She said she’d recently visited and saw ads encouraging sign-up.
Tidball-Zeltinger said that “some states took an approach very much like South Dakota,” which involved outreach to providers, while others used ad campaigns.
“It’s really a mix,” she said.
She also pointed to a chart in the DSS presentation that compared rates of Medicaid expansion take-up in states surrounding South Dakota. Some states, like Iowa, had faster uptake for Medicaid initially. Others saw rates similar to South Dakota. But all of them saw steadily increasing numbers during the first two years of expansion.
Adding around 2,000 people a month, Tidball-Zeltinger said, is “in the ballpark with what we’ve seen in other states that surround us.”
Duba suggested, however, that the DSS work to track how much the state pays per enrollee and separately report the cost for those who sign up when seeking care versus those who sign up beforehand.
Duba argued that the second group of enrollees is likely to be less expensive to cover in the long run.
“If we were more proactive, people would be using preventative services, instead of coming in when they’re sicker, or they’re in greater need, which drives our utilization costs up,” Duba said.
Budget adjustments
Lower enrollments have also had an impact on the DSS budget, at least for 2024 and 2025. The federal government covers 90% of the cost for Medicaid expansion, and South Dakota also gets 5% more per year in federal dollars until 2026 to help the state ease into the expansion.
Lawmakers set aside about $54 million in state money for the first year of expansion. The department needed $37.5 million less than that.
The department also revised its ask for 2025 downward by $16.4 million based on the lower enrollments.
South Dakota voters approved Medicaid expansion, but implementation may not be easy
Those budget revisions don’t signal savings, though. The department also set aside $11.4 million in “buy-down” dollars in 2024, and will ask to set aside another $18.3 million for 2025, in hopes of softening the budgetary blow when the 5% federal boost dries up in 2026.
Jason Simmons, the budget director for the DSS, told appropriators that the $29.7 million set aside over those two years still won’t be enough come 2026.
“That’s still going to leave $34.5 million that the state is going to have to come up with (for 2026) just to maintain that baseline level of services,” Simmons said. “Any additional enrollment, any provider inflation, anything we see added to Medicaid is going to make that number go up.”
The DSS, Bureau of Finance and Management and the Legislative Research Council worked to adjust projections after enrollments began. The revised projections are a sign that a work group that met last year to discuss Medicaid expansion did its job, according to Rep. Tony Venhuizen, R-Sioux Falls.
“This is a big area in our state budget with a lot of unknowns right now and a lot of future growth, and it’s going to take up a lot of ongoing revenue into the future,” Venhuizen said. “And I think we’ve done a very good job of working together to project this to the extent that we can and to plan for building it into our budget.”
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Part 2 of a 3-part series.
South Dakota’s weak open records law gives police agencies full discretion on whether to release footage from body or dashboard cameras, and in most cases, the videos of officer conduct are never shown to the public.
South Dakota News Watch made formal public records requests to obtain video footage of use of deadly force incidents from eight separate law enforcement agencies in November, and all of the requests were quickly denied.
On a few occasions, South Dakota law enforcement agencies have released video footage of their own accord but not necessarily in cases where officer conduct is in question.
The Watertown Police Department released a video on Facebook in early November showing officers responding to a possible break-in with their guns drawn only to find a whitetail buck that had made it into a bedroom.
In 2016, the Rapid City Police Department posted a dash cam video to its public Facebook page showing the chief’s nephew proposing to his girlfriend in a mock traffic stop. “This one is too good not to share,” the Facebook post noted.
The Rapid City Police Department rejected News Watch’s request for videos of a May 30, 2023, incident in which an officer fatally shot 25-year-old Kyle
Whiting, who brandished a fake gun during a foot chase. A bystander inside a nearby home was also shot in the abdomen by the officer and survived. The state ruled the shooting was justified.
Still images tend to clear officers
Some police agencies will occasionally release still images from body or dashboard camera videos, typically when the screenshots show an officer facing a clear threat that appears to justify use of deadly force.
In August, the state released an image from video of a July 5 chase in which a Sioux Falls police officer shot and wounded 24-year-old Deondre Gene Black Hawk in the 100 block of Garfield Avenue.
One still image released to the public shows the gun Black Hawk fired at police. Another image shows Black Hawk pointing the gun toward a pursuing officer prior to the shooting, which was ruled justified by state investigators.
In 2022, the Rapid City Police Department took the unusual step of inviting local media to privately view body camera footage showing the shooting of Barney Leroy Peoples Jr., who was killed after pointing a rifle at officers. The video was not released to the public, and the shooting was ruled justified by the state.
“This was done for public interest and public safety to dispel a false narrative circulating on social media that could have led to civil unrest,” spokesman Brendyn Medina wrote in an email to News Watch.
In a move that appeared to have political overtones, videos were released in 2021 showing former South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg being pulled over by officers for suspected traffic violations. The videos and audio showed Ravnsborg informing officers of his status as attorney general during the traffic stops, some of which did not result in tickets.
The videos were released during a period when Ravnsborg was facing possible removal from office for striking and killing a pedestrian in September 2020.
Ravnsborg was eventually impeached, an action supported by then-Gov. Kristi Noem, whose office also made the unprecedented move of releasing videos of Ravnsborg being interviewed by detectives during the investigation into the 2020 fatal accident.
Federal agency released SD shooting video
In general, the federal government provides more public access to police videos than states like South Dakota, and that access was expanded in a May 2022 executive order from President Joe Biden.
That order included a requirement to expedite public release of videos from officers’ body-worn cameras. As a result, in October 2022, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a new policy that required federal officers to wear body cameras and sought to make it easier and faster for the media and public to obtain videos captured by federal authorities.
Due in part to that policy, video of a June 2023 police-involved shooting in South Dakota was released by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. In that incident, 39-year-old James Schneider of Watauga fired a weapon and then led authorities on a vehicle chase that ended at the Bullhead Community Center parking lot.
According to the dashboard video, Schneider was waving his arms and holding a handgun in an area where people were present. After he turned to flee into a residential neighborhood, he was shot in the back by an officer. Schneider was found guilty in August of assault and weapons charges after a jury trial and is awaiting sentencing.
In releasing the video, the BIA said it was doing so to be transparent in its operations. To protect the privacy of all involved, faces were blurred in the video.
“The community briefing video is intended to help members of the community gain a better understanding of what occurred,” the BIA said in a release. “We are committed to being transparent with our community.”
Privacy a top concern for agencies
Rapid City police do not routinely release department videos, largely due to privacy concerns of anyone captured in the footage, said Medina, the department spokesman.
“Much of the information collected by (body-worn cameras) is confidential and involves personal information, including that of victims, juveniles, and vulnerable individuals involved in critical and traumatic incidents,” Medina wrote in an email. “It’s important to note that we have had requests from victims and families specifically not to release photos or videos of their encounters with police. Additionally, juvenile and victim information is protected by state statute.”
Almost all states that allow for public video releases do so with caveats that privacy issues and often concerns over protecting prosecutions are met prior to release.
Rapid City shares the management of its video program with the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, which recently spent about $48,000 to buy 68 Axon body cameras, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Helene Duhamel.
The Sioux Falls Police Department has an extensive video policy that does not typically allow for public release of videos, said Sgt. Aaron Benson.
“Granting public access to dash and body camera video potentially involves numerous issues relating to the rights of all persons in those videos. These rights include but are not limited to general privacy concerns of victims, suspects, witnesses and others, to statutory and constitutional rights of those same individuals,” Benson wrote in an email. “Additionally, release of video can detrimentally affect ongoing investigations, prosecutions and other legal matters related to those videos.”
McPherson County Sheriff David Ackerman, president of the South Dakota Sheriff’s Association, said body and dash cameras are important tools for police agencies in both urban and rural areas, even though his camera program costs about $60,000 a year, roughly 10% of the overall departmental budget.
“These are very valuable tools, and it’s something that in this day and age, every office and agency needs to have,” Ackerman said. “I’m glad where we are today because they’re for the protection of the public as well as the officers.”
Assistant police chief on body cam: ‘I enjoy wearing it’
Monty Rothenberger, assistant police chief in Yankton, said he supports the use of dash and body cameras as a way to increase accountability for officers and to aid in resolving public complaints.
“I wouldn’t do this job without a body camera, and I enjoy wearing it,” Rothenberger said. “I don’t have anything to hide. And because everything is on video, I feel like Big Brother is watching and I support that.”
The Yankton Police Department bought new cameras last year at a cost of about $80,000, he said.
Rothenberger said that while he is aware of South Dakota public records laws that do not require the department to release videos to the public, he said he personally would support the release of videos in a high-profile or controversial case.
“I’m only speaking for myself, but I would never hide anything like that,” Rothenberger said. “That’s not up to me. … (But) releasing that stuff, it’s good that agencies release things when something has gone wrong and they are being transparent.”
Read part 1 of the 3-part series:
Police videos in SD: Public pays costs but cannot see footage As more states begin to provide public access to videos captured by law enforcement agencies, South Dakota continues to keep a tight lid on them.
Publishing Friday, Dec. 19, part 3: A 2020 legislative effort to regulate body camera videos never made it to a vote, maintaining South Dakota’s national reputation for law enforcement secrecy
This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit organization. Read more stories and donate at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email to get stories when they’re published. Contact content director Bart Pfankuch at bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The governor’s Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force, which aims to determine the best path forward for expanding services, will hold its second meeting on Wednesday.
The meeting will continue the dive into what programming should look like for the new prison. Officials in the Department of Corrections say they appreciate the attention to the issue shown over the year.
“The focus is in the right place. I think people are asking the right questions. I think that it’s being noticed that reentry in totality is a group effort,” Justin Elkins, DOC Chief of Behavioral Health, said.
Sitting at 43%, lawmakers and the Rhoden administration have dedicated a substantial amount of time to addressing recidivism in the state.
“I think people are starting to see that reentry is something our department needs help within terms of collaboration and relationships. Because we only determine part of the equation when it comes to reentry,” Elkins said.
Corrections Reentry Program Manager Scott Day says this change in perspective regarding inmates is needed.
“95% of these individuals are going to come back into your community. They’re going to be your neighbors. They’re going to work at your local fast-food restaurant or at your local store. You’re going to see them walk down the street. We just need to see as a culture that these aren’t bad people; these are just people who need an opportunity to show that they can succeed.”
The prison reset task force, which focused on the structure of the new prison, ensured that programming space increased from what is currently available, even when the location changed from Lincoln County to Sioux Falls.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t constantly think about what we could do more. And the new prison is needed. We need the space, we need the opportunity to get more programming in there,” Day said.
Day says the investment into programming space is not a matter of being soft on crime but rather smart on public safety.
Copyright 2025 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
Link to the listing: https://www.frrmail.com/…
For more information, contact: Cory Busse, Farm & Ranch Realty, Inc., at 785-332-8345 or frr@frrmail.com
KENTUCKY, Hopkins County. Five tracts of river-bottom cropland totaling 597.9 acres sold at auction for $5.39 million, or $9,015 per acre. Tracts ranged from 16 to 255 acres, with much containing drainage tile. Soil types were primarily Karnak silty clay and loam with some Belknap and Robbs silty loam. Structures included a tool shed and a 5,000-bushel grain bin. Tracts ranged in price from $7,800 to $11,500 per acre.
Link to the listing: https://www.kurtzauction.com/…
For more information, contact: Joseph Mills, Kurtz Auction & Realty Co., at 800-262-1204 or jmills@kurtzauction.com.
SOUTH DAKOTA, Dewey County. A contiguous, 1,529-acre farm sold to a single bidder at auction for $2,600 per acre, or $3.98 million. The property was offered in four parcels, two of which were historically in crop production (wheat, oats, corn and sunflowers) and boasted Soil Productivity Indexes of 70 or higher. Another highly productive parcel was planted in grass and alfalfa but could be converted to row crops. The remaining parcel included a blend of cropland, pasture and an updated home with a steel barn, shop, two Quonset-style buildings, continuous panel corrals and water tank.
Link to the listing: https://glcland.com/…
For more information, contact: Kristen Gill, Gill Land Company, at 701.934.2732 or 605.848.4502 or kristen@glcland.com.
**
— These sales figures are provided by the sources and may not be exact because of rounding.
— Submit recent land sales to landwatch@dtn.com
Katie Dehlinger can be reached at katie.dehlinger@dtn.com
Follow Katie on social platform X at @KatieD_DTN
(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.
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