From the Black Hills to the Big Sioux, the Dakota Town Hall Podcast.
Hosted by Murdoc in the West and Jake in the East, Featuring Michael Bockorny of the Economic Development Professionals Association of South Dakota, and Senator Randy Deibert from District 31
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Read along with this week’s transcript from Dakota Town Hall
Murdoc: And, it’s Friday. You are locked into another episode of South Dakota’s Most Listen to political talk show with Jake in the East, Murdoch in the West. And that clip you heard in the beginning, that’s what they edited out of my political junkies interview, Jake.
Jake: Yeah, I think Lori Walsh might start fighting if you keep saying, you know, most listen to political show. You know, I know.
Murdoc: Not Des Ward keeps sending me text jokes about it, too. South Dakota’s most listened to. You know, hi, Lori. The metrics I can see him or there.
Jake: You know, I appreciate the governor Noem almost does a favor by taking down one of our competitors. If she would have passed that budget and gotten her an SDPB, you know, we would have been number one, no doubt.
Murdoc: That’s what I was telling the public broadcasting people earlier today. I was like, man, I got to go pay full price for equipment now. It’s a real drag, guys. But it was a good show to be on. And thanks to Lori.
And I’ve been wanting just all, you know, it’s a little sappy, but like I’ve been wanting to do a segment with Kevin Wooster for as long as I’ve been doing this. And it was super rad. And that was it was fun to check that off. So like, yeah,
Jake: he’s a he’s a great human being and a really a great piece of South Dakota journalism.
Murdoc: The other thing, Jake, we need to plug is next week, get your dials a-ready. And if you have any questions for our fair governor and Lieutenant Governor next week in studio here at Homeslice, we’ll have everybody in one shot. Governor Larry Rodin show historian and, you know, somewhat friend, what was the acquaintance of the show?
Jake: I was there pretty good part of the show. Yeah, they’re going to be on with us as well as being kind enough to let us be the first video episode we shoot here on Dakota Town Hall. So we’ll have a YouTube channel and all that for you guys to take in. And that’s all next week.
Jake: And but that will not be our episode next week. Next week, we’re going to do a different episode.
Murdoc: But that will come out when Murdock. I’m sorry, you’re right. Thank you for saying so. We’re recording it next week. We’re recording it next week and it will air the for the the April 1st. Thank you. Or April 3rd.
Murdoc: Where is it? Fourth, because I fly out to Vegas. Also, I’m excited. Last time I was at the Hilton in Vegas, Jake, I went on a nice little craps run over the Christmas holiday. I’m trying to get up on the holiday. Let it ride, baby. Let it ride.
Jake: So I was I was going hard on free bet all over Vegas. So doing great job. I was there.
Murdoc: Should we do a show, sir?
Jake:I think we should.
Murdoc: All right, Jake, represented from well around the state. I have stayed at this man’s hotel in Aberdeen and it is dare I say the jewel of downtown Aberdeen, the CEO of the Economic Development Professionals Association, South Dakota. Michael, I so sorry I screwed your name up last week. Bockorny is how you say that. And not and please. Apologize. I’m going to publicly apologize on the show. How bad I scooted up last week. Welcome to the show, sir.
Bockorny: Thanks for having me guys. Excited to be here.
Jake: Like, do you remember the White House Inn in Aberdeen? Oh, it’s still there, my friend.
Murdoc: It’s still there. Absolutely. It is an institution. Jake, come on.
Murdoc: OK, well, I’m not slander it. When we were in debate, someone found like like bloody clothes in the closet when they were when we say the last of the place stay. That was high school.
Bockorny: Yeah, no, she’s still there. Needs needs may be a little little touch up, but
Murdoc: she’s still still TLC, a real, you know, investor opportunity. And then back over in Spearfish from District 31, the fine senator back on the show, Mr. Randy Deibert. Thanks for coming back on, sir.
Deibert: Well, thanks for having me. I’m in good company.
Murdoc: I ran into Randy, no kidding, just a few hours ago. And I’m like, hey, we’re sort of we’re sort of guess what you do in a few hours. So thanks for coming on and short notice.
Deibert: That’s always good to be a replacement.
Murdoc: You know, better picked than not picked at all, Randy.
Deibert: That’s right.
Murdoc: OK, we got a lot of stuff to talk about. Randy, we’re going to talk about the property tax. Randy and I have a fun debate.
I think we’re going to have on some ad tax exemptions. But, you know, the most prep I’ve ever seen a guest dude to come on this show certainly deserves the floor.
Jake: A book.He sent us a book. And I appreciate I read the whole thing, by the way, just to be clear, I did read the whole thing.
Murdoc: Well, I mean, OK, Jake, where do we start this? Like a break one, we’re going to focus on the on the recent child care bill veto of Governor Noam, which.
Jake: Well, we’re really going to talk about development in the first break here. I think that’s what we’re going to do. OK, let’s start there. Mike on, right? I mean, that’s that’s that’s part of it. I mean, you can’t have people working with their kids that being taken care of, right? So so, Mike, let’s talk about Bill, the child care Bill. I’d like you to give us kind of a rundown on what the Bill was, how it came to the legislature and then what happened after that.
Bockorny: Yeah, you bet. Thanks, guys. You know, if anybody would have told me when I got into economic development 20 plus years ago that I would be spending multiple years working on child care, I would have told you, you’re just crazy. But child care is is really moved to the forefront of business development. And it’s really important not only for business, but also for families. And we’ve gotten pretty involved in it over the past couple of years.
Senator Tim Reed, a great senator out of the Brookings area, has been championing this for a number of years. And he put together a statewide child care task force and asked me to be a part of it, represent the business community of South Dakota. And long story short, guys, what we did is we spent two years doing an in depth study, significant study. And out of that study came a number of recommendations on how to close some of the gap on the child care crisis across our state. And the number one recommended item from that from that study that would help us was the fact that we were we are really short on what we call teachers, teacher, actually, as the individual is taking care of the children across the state and in the room, in the classroom, etc.
And we knew we needed to try to figure out how to do that. Bottom line is at the end of the day, the average child care worker in the state of South Dakota makes $12.67 an hour. Very, very low.
I mean, that’s way below poverty. And what we sought to do was with with HB 1132 was to try and make sure that if you are working in a child, if you’re a child care worker in a state licensed child care facility, this bill would have made it so you could qualify for child care a little easier. And we were very upfront with everybody. Yes, we were moving people to the front of the line. But the bottom line is we decided to move forward with that after a lot of thought because we have the capacity and the capability to open up and expand our child care classrooms across the state of South Dakota. We could increase those by over 40 percent. Problem is we don’t have enough teachers. And when there’s so many jobs available across the state and the average teacher is going to make $12.67, that just doesn’t pencil out. So what we have is we have a bunch of teachers when they when they have their first or their second child, do some very simple math and it becomes very easy for them to decide. They have to leave the workforce because it costs them more to put their own child into daycare than it does for them to stay working. But most of them want to stay working. But they can’t because the numbers don’t work out.
Jake: Mike, my mother was a northern grad much like you. And the exact thing happened. She was she was a teacher, had a first kid, dropped out because it made no sense anymore to be a teacher and pay for childcare.
Bockorny: Yeah, and that’s that’s what we were doing with the bill. I mean, it was pretty straightforward. You know, we had we lobbied it real hard. We we tried to provide as much education as we could and got it through a House committee and got it through the House. And then we got it through a Senate committee and then we got it through the Senate.
You know, when it landed on the governor’s desk, we learned that they they weren’t real excited about it. And, you know, he did he did make the decision to veto that bill. And while we’re disappointed and we disagree with his with his veto, we, you know, we do understand we, you know, we’ve had some very good conversations with the with the governor and his staff. And we know we’re going to continue to need to work with the administration moving forward to try to continue to fill this gap.
Jake: So during the the committees, were they opposed to it? The governor’s people, were they coming up and being opposed to it there? Or was it kind of a nowhere? I was kind of curious like where we I see his veto coming. I had no idea it was going to happen.
Murdoc: Well, DSS was against it kind of the whole way, right?
Bockorny: Yeah, they were. DSS was against it. And I don’t want to put, you know, words in their mouth. But I think a lot of their their comments were, you know, it’s maybe not great policy to to maybe move somebody to the front of the line. Again, I think I already explained that a little bit. And sometimes you got to make some tough decisions.
And that’s what we’re trying to do here. We didn’t see the veto coming either. That was that was a surprise to us. We didn’t get that feeling along the way. But I think it’s also, you know, we all went through this very unique session where we we changed governors and, you know, to Governor Rhodin’s credit or or to defend him a little bit on this, you know, we we never really had an opportunity to visit with him about it.
And, you know, they went through a lot of changes and in everything. So again, we we somewhat understand it. We’re we don’t, you know, completely agree with with his reasoning. But he is our governor and we have to respect that. And, you know, we’ll continue to work with him and his administration as we move forward. I feel very strongly that we’ll have a partner there. You know, I think Governor Rodin has already signaled to us in his short time. In the governor’s role that he is going to be more accessible, more open to visiting about a number of different things. And I’ve seen that. And this will be one of the things that we’ll continue to visit with him and his staff about.
Murdoc: Senator, you must have seen. Did you see this in a committee by chance?
Deibert: I think I don’t think it came to our committee. I think it came to. Health, not to state affairs. Do you remember, Mike?
Bockorny: Yeah, Health and Human Services is where I roll through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I only saw it on the floor.
Jake: What did you want? Paper of it, where you post it. Where would you stand?
Deibert: You know, 500 bills in my mind. And I believe I did. Maybe Michael can correct me if I’m wrong.
Bockorny: Yeah, no, you did. Yeah, you were you were a supporter. We appreciated that. Yeah. And we got pretty good support. I mean, we we had a, you know, we knew we were going to have some no’s, but, you know, a couple of the folks that maybe could could go either way in both the House and the Senate did did go yes on this.
it was interesting lobbying this and talking to a lot of people and and a couple of the no’s were surprises, but a couple of the yeses were surprises as well.
Jake: So, Mike, what’s the go forward then? I mean, you know, this is this is definitely I now, you know, not being a starting point. What’s the go forward?
Bockorny: Well, the go forward is is, you know, we still have a challenge out here. And we’re not going to quit. I think I did mention at the beginning of the show, guys, you know, I never would have thought I would have got this involved into child care. But it’s really opened my eyes in terms of supporting youth and the benefit of good quality child care and what that can do for a child and all the statistics and the data out there. And, you know, how all this plays. If you get a kid in with good care, you know, and it’s about quality care.
We’re big on quality. Child care and throwing a bunch of kids in a gym and calling it child care is not child care. It has to be structured. You know, so what we want to do is we want to make sure that we try to fill this gap. There’s still a lot of people out here that are having this issue. And we’re going to do that. What the answer is, we’ve got a couple ideas. I’m not going to tell you right now, boys, but we are.
Murdoc: It’s tease. I like it.
Bockorny: Senator Senator Reed came back with with an idea that I think is a very viable one. You will see some legislation on this again next year. One of the things that I’m big on is I’m really I’m really good at looking at other states that have tried different things and maybe have some successes.
There’s no need to recreate the wheel if the wheel has already been created. And we specifically look at red states, but I’ll tell you, one of the things we discovered is we may have a funding mechanism that we’ll bring next year that is a total ripoff from other red states that are very similar to us. And that’s how they that’s how they fund child care. So we got to flush that out a little bit and then we want to go talk to the administration and kind of see if we could get them behind it. But I think there’s a path there.
Murdoc: You’re going to sell South Dakota citizen cards, you know, like South Dakota Gold cards. I like it.
Bockorny: We got a little we got a little bit better idea than that.
Murdoc: Michael, one summer my uncles just gave me a couple of six shooters with me and my invisible friend and we just kind of hung out with them in the grove in the summer. I turned out just fine.
Bockorny: Well, you know that depending on who you ask Murdoch, that could be up for debate.
Jake: That’s a very good point.
Deibert: Mike, wasn’t there a couple of summer ad hoc committees that are groups that worked on some of this legislation?
Bockorny: Yeah, yeah. Yes, Senator, we’ve actually been going for two years. We have received funding to keep going. Our group will continue to meet. We’ve got funding for the next at least the next two years. I just don’t foresee this issue going away. I think it’s going to be a perpetual issue. We’re going to we’re going to need to do that. And it’s even I mean business is important. And that’s, you know, my role and representation on the task force. But kids are really the foundation of everything that we have everything that we will have. We need to do everything we possibly can to make sure that from the day they are born, they are put into situations at the childcare level that we can help them be successful. And we’re going to be driven on that. We’re going to make sure that that happens. We’re going to do everything we possibly can and continue to bring this issue to the forefront and keep it at the forefront in people’s minds.
Jake: It’s a good thing to think about? I mean childcare was a big topic post COVID, right? It was a huge topic and it feels like it’s kind of lost some steam to some degree. The problem has not gone away.
The expenses of what it costs to have a child is like $15,000 year in Sioux Falls for a year to have a kid in childcare and daycare. The issue is not gone away, but I feel like there’s been very few solutions that have actually fixed the issue. So I think it’s about time we get it fixed, right?
Bockorny: Yeah, we have to. I can tell you what we did really, really well during COVID is we, you know, offered some grants to help childcare centers sustain. You know, because you had a lot of rules and restrictions there, understandably. And then we put a lot of dollars to work to build more capacity, i.e. more spots. And what we forgot or didn’t do alongside of that is it doesn’t matter how much physical space you have to have childcare. If you don’t have anybody to work there.
Jake: Bodies, it’s always bodies.
Murdoc: Can’t AI babysitters yet?
Bockorny: You can’t do robots and AI childcare workers yet.
Murdoc: Yet.
Bockorny: Yeah. I think we’ll be a little ways away, but you’re still going to want to have that human interaction. And a lot of people who continue to do this work, they really do just truly have a heart for it. And I get that and we appreciate those people so much, but we also have to make sure that they get compensated enough so they can actually have a living wage.
Murdoc: Well, and then you see, you know, these daycare grants that, you know, $150,000 if you’d start a daycare, you’d see some of those programs in the state and they get so much flack. Like, I can’t believe they’re getting that much free money.
Jake: Or it’s a senator who has resigned.
Murdoc: Well, there’s that too. But, you know, running a daycare ain’t like a, you know, that’s not like, you don’t buy an island running a daycare. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a high overhead business.
You know what I mean? It’s, that’s hard to call it a business more than it’s a paycheck. And it’s usually out of some sort of necessity. It’s just, you know, it’s complicated fix.
Bockorny: That’s a complicated, it’s complicated business guys. You know, you got a lot of responsibility there. You’re literally taking care of, and you’re responsible for a lot of hours during the day of the most important, I don’t want to call a child a thing, but like, when you think about when you’re a parent, like what is the most important aspect of your life? It, it, you know, it really becomes your, your kids and you have that special bond. So, yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of responsibility there.
Murdoc: Couple of high view robots. That’ll fix it. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll try.
Bockorny: We’ll let you try and then let’s know how it works.
Jake: Tell me, you know, it’s a new governor in the state. You know, where’s it’s open for business as the, let me get your title correct, CEO of the Economic Development Professional Association. How are you feeling right now? How’s the economic development environment feeling for you? I mean, with this change in leadership and kind of the way the, you know, leadership in the Senate and the house has changed. How are you feeling?
Bockorny: I would tell you, I, you know, I feel very optimistic. I’ve had more conversations individually and in group settings with, with Governor Rhoden, in his first, what, six, seven, eight weeks here, combined with, with the previous administration. And that’s, I’m not here to knock the previous administration.
You know, we did have conversations, but we maybe didn’t always see eye to eye. I feel optimistic. I’m very excited and pleased to see Governor Rhoden out flying around, you know, going across the state talking about economic development, doing different things. I, I think that bodes very well. I will tell you, you know, economic development shouldn’t be political. It was.
Jake: Last couple years, wouldn’t say that. Yeah.
Murdoc: It’s, it’s been more political. But that’s now, it’s now we’re stuck with it. I love, by the way, I love how we, the, all of South Dakota sounds like the team that just got the number one draft pick quarterback. Like we’re not sure it’s going to work out, but like, man, the last quarterback wasn’t working, nothing against the last quarterback, but now we got this new quarterback and it’s going to be good.
Jake: We dropped her cousins cause he wasn’t doing the job for us. Senator Atlanta or the board, Southern border.
Murdoc: And now we got Jiji McCarthy.
Murdoc: We got to take a break boys. We have a great show with us and a great conversation going on with Senator Randy Diber from district 31. And then we’ve got the CEO of the economic development professional association, Michael Bakerni. And we’ll be right back after this with Jake in the east Murdoch in the west. This is Dakota town hall.
BREAK
Jake: You’re back with Dakota town hall.
Murdoc: I like that.Yeah. We’re here with some great people.
Jake: We have Mike Bockorny. I get that right. Yep. So you got it. Oh, the development. Oh my gosh. The economic development.
Murdoc: What do you call yourselves? You must not say that every time.
Bockorny: Edpa.
Murdoc: Edpa. There we go
Jake:. Edpa. I like that. And we’re also here with the majority whip and apparently recent add on to the E committee of the South Dakota Senate is Ray Deibert from district 31.
Deibert: Great to be here again.
Murdoc: How did you get suckered into that? I mean, rats. What an honor I meant. What an honor, Randy.
Jake: Yeah, man. This crowd is it a dry board or is it that you guys are going to have some wine or something?
Deibert: Well, we’ll see. It’s another interruption on my summer.
Jake: I know that. I mean, I know it was my dad’s board. It was a lot of scotch being passed.
Murdoc: That’s my point. I hope it still was entertaining. E board used to be kind of rad, but maybe it’s like joining the lions, but now none of them can drink past too. Yeah.
Deibert: Well, I probably just be as born as a rest. All right.
Murdoc: Well, Senator Deibert, you had quite to do with a lot of the property taxes and that discussion as it was at times heated debate in the halls of the Capitol building. And, you know, I guess it’s certainly as you said, off break applies to economic development. And we kind of talked over you most of the first break where you want to start.
Deibert: Well, I’m going to tie it into the economic development. What people don’t realize is economic development offsets property taxes. And as we need to educate or inform more people on how that interacts, because the more economic development you have, such as data centers, etc.
It impacts the revenue that you have to reduce property taxes. And I know Mike is aware of that. And we saw a lot of that debated in the session, not this year, but the year before. And you try to do the right thing as a legislature to acknowledge that. And, but, you know, this year we went into more depth. We had the two summer Sundays, the last two years, the first summer study, we had county revenue, we had nine bills, five were passed. Last year we talked about assessed values. We had six recommendations. We had one bill in it passed. We’ve had some success on informing more of the legislators and the public about property taxes.
But this year was interesting. We had Senate Bill 191. We had the governor’s bill. We had my bill 121. And then we had House Bill 1019, which at the time was introduced by Representative Van Heisen. And I know that you’re eager to talk about my first draft of 121, which erased an exemption for certain.
Murdoc: The choke every business that’s ever been created exemption?
Jake: Yeah, I love it. It’s fine, Randy. He’s not biased about the bill.
Murdoc: I mean, like even the non-profit Christian radio stations would be against that. And they collect tithing on their airs.
Deibert: Yeah, well, I’ll let you two go off for a bit, then I’ll come in and we’ll talk about it.
Murdoc: I’ve heard my shtick. These people know where I’m going.
Deibert: Well, you know, the intent of that in my first draft was to start the discussion about those that are exempt from certain taxes.
Murdoc: That’s what you all say. But then everybody, all right, sorry, you’re right.
Deibert: But you saw the latest, how I changed that bill and it became about the, if the sunset clause comes off from the 4.2 to 4.5, that that would create about $100 million that would go directly to property tax relief.
And I was trying to bring that sunset off early. And in my district, with the sales tax we generate, it’s a pretty serious discussion about using sales tax to help with education and lower our property taxes. And, you know, I was on the ad hoc committee put together by the governor on his bill. And that was a pretty diverse group. I would have liked to see that bill come out in a little different format. I’d like to see the growth cap at 4 rather than 3. It started at 2, so we had some success. But it does have some merit in the bill itself. Hopefully we can stabilize a few years where we can start really opening the hood here and looking at how the school formula works and is it antiquated. To me, the county formula works pretty well, you know, in my district and I can use it as an example.
Murdoc: Not a lot of people say that. Yeah.
Deibert: Well, yeah, but look at in my district, we’ve had a 35% roughly increase in values and a 25% reduction in the mill levy. When I was a commissioner, the mill levy was 4.1. It’s at 3.81 now, or 2.81 now, excuse me.
So it’s come down significantly because of the value and the growth. The issue in our district is the school funding formula, not that the schools don’t need the money, but that mill levy for owner occupied is 4.16. And then you can add on the 3% or the 3 mill levy for capital outlay. So that’s a mill levy of 7.
And that first mill levy is sent by the legislature. So my home has went from the values went up $500,000 in the term I’ve owned my home. And so if that’s that 4.16, is it $416? That’s $2,000 increase in my property taxes on the school district formula, which is set by the legislature.
On the other hand, if you look at the county, the mill levy is cut in half. So it’s not a one size fits all in any of this, but it’s important to recognize what does work. We see a lot of people out there talking about cuts.
And I keep asking them what cuts. 80% of the county budget is mandated by statute. So what do you cut on the 20%? Or do you cut public safety? Or do you, what do you cut on that 80%? What are you going to cut?
Come out and tell me. And I’ll jump on with you. But when it’s a political discussion about, we just need to make cuts. Let’s get it. Let’s dig into it. You know, I’ve worked real hard in my legislative career to dig into it.
Murdoc: So what are your, I guess we get to ask this now that session’s over. Do you go back home and do a cracker barrel lap and get yelled at by people or just get it all out in one weekend or what do you do? Do you do a coffee by coffee?
Jake: I’m curious how it’s going to go. I mean, I don’t think people are going to be necessarily thrilled with the results of the, you know, real property tax relief, right? I don’t think they’re going to be thrilled.
Deibert: Well, we’ve seen some editorials already that they’re talking about. Proposition 13 in California and bringing the petition. Or an initiative major measure and
Murdoc: who is who is talking about that?
Deibert: It was in the black Hills pioneer. There was a some, some people that were putting editorials out and, and, you know, that’s we really need to legislate this problem and, and understand it better rather than have a, a a change by a vote because it might not be as effective as if we legislated it properly. But it’s really hard to get anything through 105 people.
Jake: Well, that’s the reality of it, right? I mean, so you guys are gonna do your third summer study in five years on property taxes. So like, if you guys don’t figure it out, literally I think next year you’re gonna see the voters decided at the ballot box. And like that’s the reality. If, don’t you think that?
Deibert: Well, I think I’ll correct you. I think we’ve had four and four year.
Jake: Is it four and four? I thought it was three and five. I was thinking about it, it was searchlight, maybe had an article, I think it’s separate.
Deibert: Yeah, because before I was in the year, before I was in there’s a summer study about property taxes and they came out with a couple ideas to give you a credit for the first $100,000 on your assessment, similar to what Wyoming did this year. And that died miserably. And then the next year we had the revenue study and then the last year we had the assessment one. So now we’re going back to that, recycling it to that first one. And I think, and you know, the one we’re going to have will be a mixed group of people if we follow the recommendation from the- And
Murdoc: won’t be property taxes.
Deibert: From the speaker’s resolution. So if we adopt that and have that summer study, we should have a good diverse group. But you know, it’s been pushed harder now. Maybe we’ll have some results out of that. Yeah, as I said earlier, we’ve had good results on the last two summer studies in my opinion. And that’s not the model typically.
Murdoc: I mean, maybe- It ain’t gonna be one that seats people though, Jake.
Jake: Well, I mean, the reality is like, after a while, a referendum’s gonna happen. Like the voters are just gonna put the ballot box instead. And whatever they put up, that’s a decent proposal. It’s gonna pass. That’s the reality. If they put up like basically saying like, X, Y, Z, cut property taxes, they don’t care about the formula.
Murdoc: No normal person.
Jake:The voters don’t care about the formula at all.
Murdoc: No normal person’s gonna do that exhausting effort. Only ding-a-lings are gonna do that exhausting effort. And that won’t, it won’t, it’ll be too extreme.
Jake: What are you talking about? We just saw a completely voter grassroots effort get rid of a bill about a stupid property rights thing.
Murdoc: Right. And that’s my point though. Only extremists will do it. No normal person did that on-
Jake: It’s gonna pass. That’s reality. It’s like, if they put anything up there, the voters are gonna pass it. They’re like, oh, let’s reduce property taxes. Hell yeah, finally.
Murdoc: It sounds so reductive to the voters, but I don’t believe property tax. I don’t believe angry voters can hold their attention on something for that long. They have to get mad about something else by then. By 2026, it’s gotta be something completely different.
Jake: Property taxes have holding power. I mean, look at that. They’ve done three, four summer studies. People care about this. And if let’s just, let’s just not have a good solution. The next few years, voters gonna bring it up.
Bockorny: I agree. I gotta agree with Senator here. Sorry, just let me jump in here if you don’t mind. Jump in? If we don’t, and when I say we, if the legislature doesn’t come up with something because the growing trend right now, and you clearly saw this the last few weeks of session, and I coined the term, there was just a lot of people out there thinking, hey, we just gotta cut our way to prosperity. We don’t love economic development. We don’t wanna grow the base. We don’t want more people to move here. We want our college kids when they graduate to leave.
And those are real things. I was approached by a representative and he came up to me and said, hey, I really wish you people would quit telling everybody to move here, because we don’t want any more people to move here. And when our kids graduate, our colleges and technical schools, it would be just fine and fantastic if they would go to another state and find somewhere else to work and live, because that’s our problem. We just gotta cut, cut, cut.
And if we don’t come up with some realistic opportunities here and educate people on how property taxes work because Senator Divert was a county commissioner before and he understands this, the overwhelming majority of South Dakotans do not understand how our property taxes work. And until the past couple of years, I gotta tell you I was one of those people. So let me just give you a couple of little quick things here. We can, I think this is, and this is not Mike Bockorny, CEO of EDPA. This is just me thinking as a logical citizen here, okay? We can change our mental, I think our property taxes have become somewhat of a mental deal. If you look at the state of Kentucky, somewhat similar to South Dakota, obviously they have more population here, okay? They have a very low property tax. And a lot of people have come up to me in this past session and said, how come our property taxes aren’t like Kentucky? Well, let me tell you why they’re not like Kentucky because they have a state income tax, a corporate business income tax, their state sales tax is higher. So if we wanna make ourselves feel better about the minimal amount of services that we need as humans, like when you dial 911, you want somebody to answer the phone for somebody to come help you.
You want adequate sheriff and police departments. We don’t have the state income tax. We don’t have the corporate business income tax. We have over the course of a long time relied on our property taxes to fund education and counties and cities and all the services that we need. And if we wanna just shift, we can do that. You still need to have a certain pot of money to make the simple services that everybody needs and wants. When you drive down the road, you want the bridge to be good so you don’t fall into the river or into the gorge, pull over the bridge if it falls apart.
You want the sheriff and the police and your simple services, your necessary services that you need. So maybe that’s part of the solution as well. I give a lot of people credit this session. There were a lot of property tax bills out there. And everybody decided we really didn’t have a solution. And the one that passed put a cap on, which is a start, but nobody’s property tax bill is going down next year.
Murdoc: I’m gonna talk about both sides of my mouth, which I love doing. To your point, Jake, and well to all your points, I guess, if you don’t do anything, the people are gonna do something about it.
I’m not sure what you could do that could quench the thirst of some of these bloodthirsty people on the internet. Nothing will be, you know, some of them are trying to get rid of property taxes all in. And until that happens, they’re not gonna talk about anything.
Deibert: Well, you know, if you look at, you have to be reasonable with this, like anything else and practical.
Murdoc: Not to be in the South Dakota legislature anymore. That ship sailed, sailed couple of cycles ago, my friends. Sorry. Full stop.
Jake: Mike gave some story about some guy that wants to move away. I mean, he was talking about, like Phil Jensen was giving him an anecdote to tell us.
Murdoc: No, Californiacarly.com.
Deibert: Sorry. You know, if we wanna have real solutions, we need to sit down and talk through it. And, you know, it was interesting when I was on the commission, every budget cycle, we started at zero with every line item in a budget. And I continually tried to push cuts, but there’s five in the room. You have to agree on those cuts, right?
And you have to also agree on what you’re gonna spend money on. And that’s the way the process works. But we started at zero. And then we came up with our budget. And then we looked at our revenue.
So they were kind of disassociated till we had our budget set. And so our budget would be, let’s say 22 million, but our tax ask would be 14 million. And so we would take our tax ask and then we’d say, okay, did we go over a 3% cap or not? Normally we didn’t. So we didn’t take the CPI that year because we didn’t have to, we managed it pretty well.
And I think we were a pretty unique model. A lot of people don’t have the luxury of having a healthy county financially like we have. And we have a certain number of people, but we have a lot of public land. And to Mike’s point, when you have two people on a half mile of road paying for the road rather than eight, it’s a bigger service charge, right?
So that’s the things you have to manage. But I think if every county had the ability to do what we did, and then we divide that by our assessed values and come up with our mill levy, I mean, that’s the way it should be done. When you have people, I heard somebody on a podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about county funding and they said, but we need $100 million.
So we take that and divide that by our assessed value and we come up with our mill levy. They hadn’t even looked at their budget yet. So you have to start just like in a business. You have to start at zero and go up. And maybe I’m too practical, but that’s how I’m gonna get it.
Murdoc: Podcasters aren’t accountants, Senator, please.
Jake: I have an idea. We tax every vehicle that has less than four wheels. Ha, ha, ha. 100%. I don’t know. Every time they come into the state, we tax them out.
Murdoc: Randy’s in Spearface. Randy knows the property tax dollars that comes in from Hamster Hill right next to that holiday in up there. So he is on my side, homie.
Jake: Less than four wheels. So, I mean, in about two weeks in August, you could cover our entire property taxes. I’m telling you, it’s done.
Deibert: Well, you know, Jake, you bring up an interesting subject. Before you were born, they used to register the bikers down at the old community center downtown in Sturgis. Yup. And they would register about 200 to 300,000 bikers, depending on the year. And the county and city always had a deficit of about 70 to 90,000 dollars a year that they spent on law enforcement and emergency services during the rally. And I went to the city council and I said, you know, you should put a jar down there where they register and just put a sign up that says, we have a deficit every year providing you health, safety, and welfare.
And those 200 or 300,000 bikers would have put a buck in each. Right? Oh, yeah. But now, when you go to Sturge during the rally and you’re paying $1,000 a night for a room and $45 for a hamburger, you’re not as willing to give that money, right? That’s exactly for a buck.
Murdoc: Come on now.
Deibert: And you know what? My saying is I’ve been to 66 rallies and haven’t bought a t-shirt yet. So maybe I’m a little conservative.
Jake: You probably skipped that crap. But it’s like the American something, the terrible bar in Sturgis.
Murdoc: Now that we’re all talking about it, come on down to the loud American, the epicenter of the Sturge motorcycle rally. It’s the 85th year. Everybody’s welcome. You don’t need a motorcycle. It’s just the year I finally go. I’ve never been. Come on down. Should I join you this year? Have a cold beer and a wiggle. It’s a good time.
Bockorny: I haven’t been out there either, guys. And I got so many friends out here.
Murdoc: No one in the state’s business knows that state’s largest event drives millions and millions and millions worth of money into the state. Almost no one knows anything about it because they’re like ew, bikers. And you know, even they’re the most MAGA group you’ve ever met. And here I am, high-fiving them as they come in.
Jake: And this summer, we’ll definitely do that history of the rally episode.
Murdoc: We promise her years. We’ll do that this summer. It’s going to happen this summer. You come out to the rally and we’ll do it. That’s a great great idea. See, look at this coming up with content as we go here.
Jake: As we go.
Deibert: Well, at one time, John, sorry, held the intersection at Junction on Lizzell. And if you know where that’s at, that’s so I could see it all through my office window. And I had parking.
So I could come over and park during the rally and not have to fight parking. But it’s really evolved, guys. And the impact is different. It’s spread out more. A lot of it’s in the county. A lot of it’s at the Buffalo chip. A lot of it’s over at the Houston.
Murdoc: Southern Hills, Northern Hills. We should be shaking Gillette down for a little money because they’re the only reason anybody drives through that Godforsaken place in August. Sorry, Gillette. Are you listening?
Deibert: It’s changed. I think a great deal. Oh yeah, I know. Ooh, the Gillette Applebee’s. You must try. All right. I was like, let’s take a break.
Jake: We’ll be right back. We’re here with the Good Center from District 31, Randy Dibart as well as Mike Bakrini. He is the CEO of the Economic Development Professionals Association. I got that all in one try. For the Co-Town Health, we will be right back.
BREAK
Murdoc: On the last lap, having a great time with a great show. You’re back with Jake in the East. I’m Murdock in the West. This is another episode of Dakota Town Hall.
If you, like Jake’s dad, like to listen on Saturday and give us notes, you can go to dakotantownhall.com. Or we’re not that hard to track down. You can find us on various social media platforms.
Jake: And we got- What’s the number you have by number? You can just text me.
Murdoc: Yeah, whatever. We’re pretty Google-y or whatever. A great conversation with a couple of great guests. Senator and Majority Whip, Randy Dibart from District 31, and Michael Bakrini from, from who fits a tough one, buddy. The Ek-ek-ek-deh.
Bockorny: Edpa.
Murdoc: Edpa.
What do I keep song? Edpa. There you go. I always want to call it Ek-Deb. That’s what’s throwing me. You call us whatever you want. Well, right before we went on the air, you said you have a fix for property taxes. Lay it on us, homie.
Bockorny: All right, here’s what it’s gonna be. Okay? It’s per serious, guys. Not, not like Jake’s terrible idea, we’re gonna tax a little bit. What do you mean? You can’t do it for me? Or whatever. But it’s, it’s going to require a lot of people who are relatively smart getting around a table and everybody’s gonna need to give a little bit because there’s not a one, one solution fix. There’s going to need to be multiple things done.
Murdoc: You can sell Watertown to Minnesota.
Bockorny: No, I like Watertown. That goes to be it. Yeah, no, give him, give him like a… I don’t want to sell anything. I like all of our communities because they’re all wonderful in their own way.
Jake: No, we can sell Harrisburg. That’s really a good sell off.
Bockorny: It’s a little, but that’s a good solution. I like Harrisburg too. I don’t, no, we’re not getting rid of anybody. Everybody’s gonna have to get around a table. Everybody’s gonna have to give a little bit.
You know what? We might have to admit there might need to be some new revenue generation. We may need to find some efficiencies.
You know, there’s some good ideas out there. And I can tell you, here’s how economic development is gonna help in this. Okay, Senator Jim Melhoff, when we were debating, or the Senate was debating SB177, which was our attempt to try to secure some data centers in South Dakota. We failed by one vote. Although I will tell you, the governor’s office and the GOED has engaged us very well after that. We are moving toward a potential fix.
So we still might be able to get some of those. Senator Jim Melhoff, during that debate, gave a great analogy. And he talked about right now, when things get a little bit tighter, budget-wise, we tend to really turn the spicket off, like the water spicket. We tend to turn it off for some reason.
And it’s running at a trickle right now. And I would tell you what we need to do is we need to turn that baby on full blast. We got a lot of opportunities. We need to take advantage of those opportunities. And we come together and we put together a multi-pronged solution to this. And I think we’ve got a chance.
Jake: Dakota Dunes, we could sell Dakota Dunes. That one floods so much.
Murdoc: Now right now they’re about to kill that development deal and house the normal candidates. That town’s about to go to the hooligans.
Jake: Mike, you’re right though. I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s gonna take a lot of us, a lot of people around the table. And you’re right, that kind of development is one of the ways to go. And in fact, it’s always a good thing to increase economic development.
And luckily, Ronan’s out there right now saying, South Dakota is open for business, not for pipelines, but everything else. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Ha, ha, ha. We’ll ask him about that next week on Dakota Town Hall.
Deibert: I’m so excited. I think Mike’s got a good point. You know, you have to look at cuts, you have to look at revenue, you have to look at collaboration, you have to look at efficiencies. And I hope that the voters understand that it’s a challenge and are a little patient with us. I mean, we’ve been working towards this solution a long time. I don’t know if we’ll get it done overnight.
Murdoc: I just remember those primary postcards being super patient about property taxes. Ha, ha, ha. They’re the most patient piece of media I’ve ever seen in my life.
Jake: You know, I don’t learn the voters though for being, for getting, for losing patience. Honestly, at some point, there needs to be an answer. And I said earlier, and if there isn’t an answer soon, they’re gonna take it upon themselves. And we saw how that’s gone recently with voter initiatives and it’s gonna keep going.
Murdoc: So right before we went on to record this, as we record on a Thursday night here, there is, I mean, the national news, Senator Rounds is in the charge of putting through a bill that would, I guess, get rid of the, I’m not trying to be reductive, get rid of the Department of Education.
Jake: I believe that’s accurate. And in fact, I believe our good governor penned an article for, was it Dakota Scout? I think. Yep. Yep. In favor of this, kind of saying how it’s a good thing for South Dakota.
Murdoc: I don’t know if, I don’t know if Des didn’t reach out to us and go, yeah, you betcha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Listen, I guess let me start here. I can’t think of somebody that I trust more than Senator Rounds and his staff, and his staff especially, in that town. And if they say it’s a good idea, and they’re, I mean, they’re all, you know, they have the, they’ve got the votes, they can do this, but it sounds crazy. No?
Jake: I don’t, no. I don’t think it’s crazy. I think. Crazy is an extreme word. Can I. No, no, no, no. I think crazy is a fine word to say because I think the left would say it’s crazy. Gotcha. The reality is, I think the Department of Education is one of those things that we are so used to it being there, we can’t imagine it not existing.
It could be. So you look at what the mandate of the Department of Education is and if it is to teach our kids That’s the job of the states states Department of Education’s What they really do is they give up funding that’s really what they did they hand off funding
Murdoc: I agree they give up funding but but it’s but you know and I don’t mean it to make it an anti-trump thing and I and I Just want get let me get this out and then I I’ll maybe give the floor to the all three of you to tell me I’m wrong There’s not a plan it not really it Not if you’ve got a child with disabilities and not if you’ve got college loans like respectfully if the Department of Education is going away How can I how can you expect any or no department education? No one’s gonna pay their loans because it doesn’t exist anymore
Jake: I Like I like eight grand left. I’m like let them just forget about that
Murdoc: and like I don’t know the title oneness of it all also like This takes the voucher here’s this is the itchiest part about it I think this takes the whole voucher debate and puts it on a on a rocket ship on a on a SpaceX rocket ship and and that is Good that’s the primary. It’s the whole primary next year
Jake: I really think This is largely a misconception about what the DOE does on a national level It’s not the body that takes care of your kids is education. It’s really not That’s your state Department of Education that does that. Getting rid of the part of education has been a long-term goal of the right if you look at a lot of think tanks It’s been a long term goal. It’s like pro life and then kind of the Department of Education is like right underneath it almost
Murdoc: Yeah, but only so they
Jake: can There is a plan But that’s also the plan because they want to beat the teachers unions in the general so it’s not all There’s not like there’s isn’t strategy to that Well, I think I’m just a guest.
Deibert: Yes I think I’m the only one on this podcast that went through K through 12 before the Department of Education existed It was formed in the 80s. Wasn’t it in 1980 or eighty two seventy nine?
Bockorny: I think no 1980 okay,
Deibert: so I I got I think I got a pretty good education the opportunity is that the post-hiet Level were a little different at the time the student loan program wasn’t as robust but You know it would be interesting to go into our school districts and say how much money do you spend? Trying to get this federal money Is there really a gain there or are you spending more effort qualifying for the money than you’re producing? And while we’re in there we look at how much how much money are we spending in education on social programs rather than educating? And I think that’s a deep dive in there But if we could take the rep the money that we’re spending on the bureaucracy of the Department of Education And we could apply that on to the boots on the ground students. We’d be better off That’s the way I look at it.
Jake: I Think it’s a fantastic opportunity to reduce federal oversight federal oversight federal red tape on A process that states own and should own I’m all in favor of this and that’s not clear enough But it sounds radical because you go oh give me the Department of Education. Oh, how do you do that? Our kids aren’t learning. That’s not what they do.
Murdoc: I can I can hear your argument I even agree with that part of it, but I think There’s there’s gonna be real blind spots in the title oneness of it And we’re at our worst when we’re not Sporting those people and it sure feels like that’s the recipe that this is about to create
Right no, right no blah blah blah, but you know if you don’t invest in these kids Yep, what’s the point of any economic development if none of these kids know anything by the time they get ready
Jake: to That’s the argument they always let those goes with is oh the kids are me do have dumb kids Now with the DOE does You guys know what?
Bockorny: You’re you’re both right and you’re both wrong. I do agree with that, too Let me
Jake: well we’re always we’re always that just so
Bockorny: we’re yeah, let me tell you let me let me educate you So I’m an obsessive reader shameless plug here My wife and I’s newest business on Main Street of Aberdeen is a bookstore called novel ideas So if you’re ever an Aberdeen stop in and see me
Jake: So the Alonzo Ward and you’ve ever read have you ever read the Red Rising series?
Bockorny: Yes, I read I’ve just Thousands of books in my life.
Jake: I’m on the third book right now incredible book to our listeners.
Murdoc: All right Dorks back on track Yeah back on track here.
Bockorny: You’re both right. You’re both wrong. Here’s the deal simple facts I believe that the Department of Ed was created. I think it was in October of 1979 and then it went into play in the early 80s The intent was is to make sure back then that the dollars that the federal government was providing I think they wanted a little more oversight and they wanted to streamline some of that a little bit Technology has advanced, you know We can we can probably take some of this stuff out now and return it back to local control But the Department of Education since its inception inception has never once educated Anybody that’s not what they were created to do. However, so Jake, you’re right Here here’s where you’re slightly Murdoch brings up a good point.
Jake: You can stop talking now.
Murdoc: Yeah Sounds Dumb goose education’s coming out
Bockorny: Here’s where you do have to be careful and I would tell you I have learned this over the past couple years in all of the stuff I have learned related to childcare that we talked about earlier in the episode One of the most important roles the federal Department of Education does play is when you start talking about title one and special education This if you move too fast on something like this This is where you can you know Not in there unintentionally make an error and all of a sudden you end up leaving Somebody behind and that’s clearly what we don’t want to do so hopefully they take a measured approach on this and make sure that we still Take care of the individuals who maybe have those special needs and we want, you know, we’re all humans I mean we have to take care of each other So I think there’s an opportunity here The senator rounds was actually it was either yesterday or today was on Fox News And did a very nice job talking about this and talked about where some of these Where where the pieces of the departments would go because there’s some some capabilities some other departments to do this And there’s a little bit of duplicating work going on but he talked about special ed and title one specifically Possibly remaining in a shrunk down department of Ed So that’s that’s I think where that probably goes, you know, you know, hey, here’s a suggestion guys I don’t know if you can get a month you have sent a rounds on talk about
Jake: this One of the early early guests this show prior to me being a host actually
Murdoc: and all kidding aside He we probably figure that out here pretty quick and I did I have been texting back and forth with the staff and you know Mostly I’ll I did I will admit I mostly wanted them to come on and talk about where do you have dumplings at in Chinatown in DC though? I didn’t I didn’t know it was gonna be education, you know adjustment week or whatever we’re gonna call it.
Jake: Okay, Jake Got a couple of plugs for me in the show Teenage republican camp is back on it’s gonna be See July 21st 26th It may sound so nerdy, but honestly if you have kids that are ages between 13 and 18 check it out. It’s awesome I made out with more girls because this camp than any other reason in high school Put that on the fire with your face. Yeah, put put that out like it Growing up as a kid And your your sons can be good Republican girls Second thing I want to plug the Humane Society is having the pause to celebrate It’s the annual fundraiser we have I’m on the board of the main side of here in Sioux Falls April 12th. I love to join us at the district. It’s gonna be a fantastic event Celebrate the Humane side of here in Sioux Falls.
Murdoc:I like the kitchen at the district. They do a good job there.
Jake: Oh, Rome. It’s Rome.
Murdoc: Yeah, it’s great All right, my friends that’s gonna do it for this week’s episode I want to thank our guest from the economic development professionals association. Mr. Michael Bakernan Thank you for coming on your hotel the Alonso war and Aberdeen. I’m not kidding I’m gonna I don’t I send I called it the jewel downtown. It’s great place. See everybody should check it out It’s a wonderful journey. Also from up in spearfish The majority whip senator Randy Diver from district 31 and then from Jake in the east. I’m Murdoch in the west We’ll see you guys next week. It’s Dakota Town Hall
