PIERRE, S.D. – Some lawmakers on a budget committee questioned whether a state department has spending authority to move forward with a controversial $20 million shooting complex north of Rapid City.
Yet the project is under construction and the lawmakers have not taken action to stop it.
Department of Game, Fish and Parks Secretary Kevin Robling presented a status update Thursday in Pierre to the Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee.
One of the committee’s responsibilities is vetting departmental budgets. Rep. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls, has served on the budget committee since 2017. He questioned Robling about the source of the department’s authority to pursue the shooting complex.
Robling said it was in recent informational budgets presented to the committee with line items labeled for “Black Hills Shooting Range” and “Rapid City Shooting Complex.”
Karr said he remembered discussing various projects, but not the shooting complex.
“I remember asking you questions about capital projects: How you rank them, how you prioritize them, how many dollars you have available, etcetera,” Karr said. “I don’t remember seeing this and going, ‘Hey this looks like it’s going to go to the shooting range, and in a couple years you’re going to build a $20 million shooting range based on the authority we’re giving you in these last couple of budgets.”
In 2021, lawmakers rejected a $2.5 million appropriation for the project. They rejected more funding attempts for the complex in 2022, citing concerns over a lack of project details and potential costs.
Monday, Karr asked if other lawmakers on the committee recalled giving the department the spending authority. He was met with an audible “no” from lawmakers including Rep. Linda Duba, D-Sioux Falls, and Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel.
After the meeting, Maher voiced frustration to South Dakota Searchlight over what he described as declining legislative oversight over state spending. He said the amount of funding departments transfer for other purposes, or spend without direct approval, has increased since he came to office in 2007. Maher lost his primary election in June and will leave office in January.
“This business of continuous appropriations and budget transfers, there’s just too much of it,” Maher said.
He hopes lawmakers lead efforts to give the Legislature more budgetary oversight during the upcoming session.
Maher and Karr have been frustrated with how Gov. Kristi Noem’s administration has gone about the shooting-range project for a while now.
While legislators were passing a law in March requiring more information from her administration about the Future Fund that she controls, Noem was awarding $13.5 million from it to the shooting range, unbeknownst to lawmakers. Karr and Maher didn’t find out about the Future Fund award until South Dakota Searchlight learned about it and told them.
The late Gov. George Mickelson convinced lawmakers to create the Future Fund in 1987. State law says the fund must be used “for purposes related to research and economic development for the state.” The fund is held by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, but unlike other funds managed by the office, the Future Fund is not overseen by a board of citizen appointees.
The shooting range is being built on a 400-acre site roughly 15 miles north of Rapid City and 25 miles southeast of Sturgis. Robling said it will host national shooting competitions and shooters from around the county.
The department initially said in 2021 that the project would cost $9.9 million. That grew to $12 million in 2022. Then the department paused the project when calls for bids attracted only one. The department wanted to use federal Pittman-Robertson funds – which come from taxes on guns, bows and ammunition to support wildlife conservation and hunter education – to help offset the cost. That is, until it learned more time was needed to analyze the site’s archaeological significance to Native Americans, which led the department to withdraw its federal funding request.
Then, Noem gave the project $13.5 million from the Future Fund. Another $6.5 million has come in the form of donations. About $7 million has been spent so far, Robling told lawmakers.
Robling said the project will need three full-time employees, who will be reallocated internally, as well as seasonal staff and volunteers.
Some lawmakers expressed doubt about the staffing plan Thursday.
“I think you’re really underestimating what it’s going to take to run this facility,” Karr said.
Duba, who did not seek reelection this year and will leave office in January, told South Dakota Searchlight after the meeting that she fears the maintenance of the shooting complex could strain the department’s resources.
“The 2025 Appropriations Committee needs to take a close look at the plan,” Duba said. “The secretary referenced using existing funds. What other facilities will suffer?”
Robling told the committee he expects a grand opening for the shooting range in the fall of 2025. The department expects the complex to generate around $550,000 in annual revenue, though he acknowledged it would not be profitable and would require financial supplementation through federal Pittman-Robertson funds.
No lawmakers asked how the department can use those funds for the project’s operations after the department withdrew its request for Pittman-Robertson construction funds to avoid allowing more time to analyze the project site’s significance to Native Americans. The Department of Game, Fish and Parks did not immediately respond to a South Dakota Searchlight message seeking an explanation.
