In her annual budget address earlier this month, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem recommended the state cut spending by 27 percent, due to an unexpected decrease in sales tax revenues and the fact they have depleted their pandemic-era federal funds.
Ever since Noem took office in 2019, South Dakota’s budget has ballooned from about $4.3 billion to $7.3 billion, defying an otherwise historically moderate trajectory in state spending.
There’s to be pain all around, Noem warned. Not to be catty, but if she succeeds as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, it won’t be hers to bear.
Some are expected to not only escape Noem’s knife, but hit the jackpot.
Noem is suggesting $4 million be allotted for vouchers for students to attend either a private school or an “alternative education” other than public schools. Families will receive $3,000 per child.
Meanwhile public schools are scheduled to receive a 1.25 percent increase, far short of the current 3.2 percent rate of inflation, and thus requiring cuts therein.
Of those, is $1 million in cuts to the South Dakota State Library — a whopping 64 percent of its budget. If that happens, the library will be forced to lay off 12 of its 21 employees. Its services and programs will become a shell of their present selves.
No one will go unscathed, including homeschooling families and public and school libraries who depend on the state library for professional and educational databases and resources, access to streaming services, scholarly publications, the popular e-book service, interlibrary loan support, genealogy services and databases, summer reading programs, and professional development programs for libraries and public schools.
Reducing the state library’s budget so drastically also means it would no longer be able to qualify for the estimated $1.3 million in federal grants it currently receives. To qualify for the federal funds, states are required to match them by 34 percent; something that South Dakota would not be able to afford if legislators follow through.
Also at death’s door is South Dakota’s public broadcasting service, whose budget could be reduced by 65 percent, if Gov. Noem’s suggestions are heeded.
The programming service requested $5.6 million — about half of its budget — for the next fiscal year. Noem came back at $1.9 million.
Donations by friends provide 30 percent of needed funding, with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting picking up the rest.
In addition to carrying PBS and NPR national programs, the statewide radio and television network provides original programming as well as serving as the primary relayer of emergency information.
Such cuts would enfeeble the service and its outreach, which is particularly critical to a state such as South Dakota where very few people are scattered far and wide.
Of Noem’s $20 million in proposed cuts, a disproportionate amount hits information-related services and programs such as libraries, the media, and even public schools who have become ultra-conservatives’ moral foil and deemed in need of having their wings clipped.
