2010 Election

I have chosen to run for re-election for the House of Representatives, as we need a better balance of power in the Legislature to truly serve the people of South Dakota.  You will be hearing more from me in the coming days and weeks.  I am especially excited this year as I have two very progressive thinking individuals as my running mates: Jim Larson, House and Tom Cool, Senate. Amongst the three of us we bring to the table a lot of practical experience with Labor, Education, and Business.

Read my 2010 election plans

We are looking forward to meeting each and every one of you. Please feel free to contact me at 605-361-9923.

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To read my thoughts on the process of balancing the budget during the recent Legislative session, click here. You will find excerpts from the speech I gave on the House Floor prior to the vote on the budget.

Notes from the S.D. Legislature by Darrell Solberg

March 2010

*Another tough Legislative session, the 85th, is rapidly coming to a close. There have been many high points and yes low points during the session. We must all remember the CORE FUNCTIONS of State Government:

>Protect people
>Help those that cannot help themselves
>Provide education
>Encourage jobs and economic development
>Maintain infrastructure

*We spent an enormous amount of time discussing useless resolutions rather than addressing the revenue short falls that we are experiencing or planning on how we are going to fulfill our duties of providing for the core functions of State Government. In fact, one of the resolutions generated quite a laugh as South Dakota seemed to be the laughing stock on one of the national TV programs because of it.

*The budget again dominated the conversation during the last weeks. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the budget issue settled, thus we will be doing that March 29th and possibly the 30th. Much to my dismay the balancing of the budget has been put off until we see what we’ll be receiving from the Federal Government in stimulus monies. The stimulus money bailed us out last session and it looks like it will do likewise this session. We cannot afford to continue the growth of State Government the way it has the past seven years and rely on reserve funds or the Federal Government to balance the budget. We need a strong prioritization of spending and keeping things within our means.

*Both parties have laid out cuts to balance this year’s budget; however I’m having heartburn over some of the cuts of the majority party. 

>Opportunity scholarship funding has their blessing to be slashed $2,000,000.

This scholarship is meant to provide some of our brightest high school graduates with a scholarship to go on the college in S.D. Cutting this back may mean that they go out of state to college, which means we risk losing them as part of our work force. Education is an investment and the driving force of economic development, thus I believe this cut would be very short sighted.

It is time for the state to looking at funding a need based loan program for students to go on to higher education in S.D. There are many students that simply don’t go on to post high school education because of cost. S.D. has one of the lowest student loan defaults in the country, thus this would be a good investment for the state for our future.

It pains me that we give a pipeline a $38,000,000 excise tax rebate and we can’t find money to properly fund education, provide state employees or providers a raise.

>Intensive Meth Program is slated to be cut $1,700,000, which means cutting 16 FTE’s that are providing a very valuable service in S.D. 

This program has proven itself, as it has kept individuals from having to be incarcerated for a long period of time. Incarceration costs much more than prevention. This program helps addicts recover and get back into the main stream of S.D. rather than sitting in prison and costing the tax payers many dollars. The drug court keeps people on the outside, thus cutting it will cost much more down the road.

>Tobacco Prevention fund is slated to be cut $2,300,000. This means cutting 3 FTE’s and lower the education of the dangers of smoking.

Smoking is an individual right, however any education that the state can provide to highlight the risks of smoke will pay off in the long run.

*I was also disappointed that some good bills did not reach the House floor for full debate. They were killed in committee or came to the House floor with a DO NOT PASS recommendation, thus the only discussion centered on striking the NOT.

>HB 1255 to cut the sales tax on food items. It passed in committee 9 to 6 to send it to the floor with a DO PASS recommendation.  However, through posturing the bill was then sent to the Appropriation Committee where it failed along party lines. South Dakota remains only one of seven states that use full state sales tax rate on food items. 36 states plus DC don’t tax food items.

>SB 191 to establish the South Dakota Early Learning Council. This bill would have provided voluntary pre-kindergarten programs to children from low-income families. It passed in the Senate, but failed in the House Education Committee pretty much along a party vote.  The bill was smoked out of committee and it came to the House floor with a DO NOT PASS recommendation, so again all we could do was discuss striking the NOT and not the merits of the bill.

I am looking forward to going back March 29 to balance the budget. Hopefully we’ll see some amendments to the general bill that will restore K-12 funding to 1.2% increase and amendments to provide State Employees and Medicaid Providers an increase. We feel that there are monies available to do this now, rather than have to wait until the economy rebounds.

There are solutions for our challenge, however they are not always politically correct, popular, or evenly distributed. Democracy is a wonderful form of Government. Sometimes it is the people within the democratic forum that causes the problem.