The South Dakota Educational Telecommunications Board meets in Sioux Falls on July 24, 2025. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS — South Dakotans should know what stays and what goes at South Dakota Public Broadcasting — absent a philanthropic or state budget lifeline — within the next two weeks.
Whatever happens, SDPB’s director says, the public will have two months’ notice before programs and voices disappear.
The recent congressional clawback of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cost SDPB about $2.2 million, which is about 20% of its budget.
SDPB is a state entity, and its staff members are state employees. The organization also receives support from the nonprofit Friends of SDPB.
Julie Overgaard, SDPB’s executive director, told budget committee lawmakers this week she’s looking at layoffs for up to 20 staff members and local content cuts across its radio and television operations as a result.
SD Public Broadcasting considering cuts, layoffs after Congress rescinds federal funding
The state’s Educational Telecommunications Board reviewed a proposed downsizing plan in a closed door session in Sioux Falls on Friday afternoon. The board’s charge is to ensure SDPB operates within the legal corners of its broadcast licenses.
After the executive session, Overgaard told South Dakota Searchlight “we’re going to do everything we can to save our statewide coverage and all of our broadcast licenses.”
“Nobody should see their SDPB radio or TV signal go away because of this,” she said.
The downsizing plan will have an audience with the board for the Friends of SDPB on Monday.
After that, Overgaard will show the plan to the commissioner of the Bureau of Information Technology — the government office under which SDPB is nested — and Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen before offering it to Gov. Larry Rhoden for final approval. The governor needs to approve layoffs for state agencies, Overgaard said.
If Rhoden signs off, staff and the public — in that order — will be notified of “the people and programs we’re going to lose, if there is no fix applied.”
“It’s not the state’s job to fill that entire fiscal hole,” Overgaard said, but she hopes the governor will at least consider funding to help SDPB continue livestreaming state government proceedings. The state owns the equipment used to livestream legislative and other government meetings, while the money to operate it comes from the SDPB budget.
Friends of SDPB intends to dip into its endowment to make sure none of the content changes come until Oct. 31, and Overgaard said the intervening months will determine how many of the plan’s listed layoffs and program cuts ultimately come to pass.
“To the extent that we’re able to fundraise, find foundation support and find business support, those things will come off the list,” Overgaard said. “People will be reinstated, programs will be reinstated.”
Kay Jorgensen, president of the Educational Telecommunications Board, urged SDPB’s supporters to “do what they did during the legislative session,” by throwing their support behind the system.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem had proposed an evisceration of SDPB’s state-level funding before her departure to join President Donald Trump’s cabinet as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. State lawmakers rejected those efforts.
Before the closed-door session, the board heard a report on the system’s financial health through June, the month before Congress opted to ax public media money. SDPB was in the black and living well within its means, Jorgensen said.
In the face of the new reality created by congressional recission, Jorgensen added, “our goal is to stay lit, and to serve the public as we always have.”
“We would ask the public to articulate their views on why public broadcasting is so important, to share it with their friends and neighbors, and certainly with the policymakers on the local, state and national levels,” Jorgensen said.
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