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Kirkegaard’s Out; Sutton’s In?

Don Kirkegaard
Gettin’ while the getting’ is good….

Today’s tea leaf says Billie Sutton is going to win the Governor’s race.

Still-new Education Secretary Don Kirkegaard is quitting his state job to go superintend the West Bend School District in West Bend, Wisconsin.

Kirkegaard starts at West Bend on July 9. Kirkegaard would have gotten $155K for a full year of secretarying education statewide for 133,000 kids in 150 school districts. That’s the same salary his predecessor at West Bend got to start two years ago for supervising just under 7,000 students in 11 schools. West Bend may boost that salary to $175K. Plus, he won’t have to put up with the Oglala Sioux Tribe, conservative legislators, and South Dakota’s liberal media giving him guff (though, hey, I’ve gone really easy on him since his confirmation in January!).

Still, Kirkegaard’s worked in South Dakota all his life. Secretary is a slack job compared to superintendent—far fewer interactions with naughty students and crabby parents, far more prestige, a state car, and tons of federal money to spend… why would Kirkegaard give up this sinecure so swiftly?

Enter Billie Sutton.

Kirkegaard’s long-term job security in South Dakota depends on Republicans holding the Governor’s office. Kristi Noem is writing outstanding briefs for us Democrats to use against Marty Jackley. If those attacks help Noem win the primary, the Republicans are stuck with the candidate whom Sutton can more easily counterprogram (Sutton rides a horse, shoots a gun, balances budgets, and does it all from a wheelchair with a cuter baby son!) and beat in November.

Kirkegaard sees a tight GOP primary (supported by today’s Noem 45/Jackley 44 poll from KELO-TV and that Sioux Falls paper) that will require Noem and Jackley to spend every penny they have beating the stuffing out of each other. Kirkegaard sees Sutton riding his campaign cash over Noem and Jackley’s battered corpses to the Capitol to clean up four decades of SDGOP corruption. Kirkegaard sees Sutton letting go anyone remotely connected with the GEAR UP scandal, the EB-5 scandal, the DCI sexual harassment scandal, the Global Aquaponics scandal, and whatever other sneaky deals are currently hidden by the Republicans in power. Kirkegaard sees a Blue Wave of honest Democratic nominees for state positions and sees his job security shifting east to Wisconsin, where conservative Scott Walker is running for a third term.

There are 20,000 other reasons Kirkegaard could be quitting the Department of Education and moving to Wisconsin. But it’s so dull thinking everything is about money, don’t you think? Maybe, just maybe, Kirkegaard is seeing a political shift that will send GOP cronies scurrying for cover in other states.

p.s.—Sugar for your tea leaf: Know who else is leaving the education stage in South Dakota? Northern State University Education dean Kelly Duncan, whose name comes up in discussions of GEAR UP more often than Kirkegaard’s.

12 Comments

  1. BlackHills76 2018-05-29 18:08

    I believe there is a much deeper reason Noem and Jackley are going out of their way trying to out “cowboy/cowgirl” each other and it’s not just to win the primary… It’s to set themselves up for the general as well. The big wheels in the State GOP are already trying to write off Sutton in public, but behind the scenes they are very worried about either candidate against Billie Sutton. The funny thing is Jackley comes across as a drugstore cowboy in his newest ad and Noem is a professional politician who takes her orders from a man that used to live in a New York City penthouse.

    Billie’s been raising a lot of money compared to any D governor candidate in the past. He’s a smart and down-to-earth common sense man with plenty of experience. He’s also a very likeable real cowboy. No doubt in my mind if we all work together we can get him elected.

  2. grudznick 2018-05-29 18:12

    You have read Mr. Kirkegaard’s mind, better than Penn and Teller.

  3. Jenny 2018-05-29 19:26

    Don’t blame him for gettin’ the hell out of Dodge…

  4. LA 2018-05-29 20:25

    Kirkegaard was no doubt highly recommended for his new position by the outstanding consulting firm Dakota Education Consultants.

  5. Donald Pay 2018-05-29 20:48

    The West Bend school district has had roiling controversies over the last couple years. It will be a challenge.

  6. Debbo 2018-05-29 21:37

    I read the previous article you linked to about Kirkegaard’s history and the extreme level of enmeshment within the SDGOP in the various criminal scandals. I suppose they figure if they drag everyone in, no one can talk without implicating themselves. It’s gotta be easier investigating pres Animal Sh*thole and his crime family.

  7. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2018-05-30 07:58

    Kirkegaard’s old consulting firm appears not to have been involved in his hiring. The West Bend School Board says it engaged McPherson & Jacobson LLC, an Omaha middleman, to consult on the hiring process.

    One of McPherson & Jacobson’s SD consultants is Dr. Hank Kosters, who was state superintendent of education from 1987 to 1991 and was in charge of superintendent searches for ASBSD for 14 years until his retirement in 2009. Kosters now lives in Pierre, as Kirkegaard will for only another month.

  8. Donald Pay 2018-05-30 09:19

    West Bend probably is looking for someone who will stick around. They’ve had pretty quick turnovers in their supers lately. They need someone who has political skills, because Act 10, Governor Walker’s “bomb” that dropped in 2011, has caused a lot of problems in that district between teachers and the district administrators.

    Let’s make some assumptions, though, about the future. Let’s say Tony Evers wins the Democratic Party nomination for Governor and goes on to beat Scott Walker. Evers currently is the Secretary of the Department of Public Instruction, an elected head of what in South Dakota is the appointed Secretary of Education. That office would be open, and, though technically a non-partisan office, the candidates usually line up ideologically with one of the parties. The more conservative side of the aisle has had little luck fielding good, electable candidates for that office over a couple decades. So, maybe, Kierkegaard could, if not next year, then sometime in the future, be a candidate for that office.

    It is likely, even if Evers doesn’t beat Walker, that this will be his last term in that office, so it will be an open seat anyway.

  9. Lori Stacey 2018-05-30 10:03

    I predict possibly some big surprises coming into the top races after the primary is over and possible candidates know who their opponents will be. Stay tuned……

  10. Betty Davis 2018-06-07 11:03

    From what I have heard South Dakota is better off with Kirkegaard gone. It seems South Dakota needs to revamp alot of its educational practices that fail to support the needs of special needs children in its school districts. That is such an extremely sad thing for all the children who live there. I’ve heard so much about all the corruption in South Dakota. That needs to be rectified. Governors appointing family members to offices is very wrong in my opinion. Everyone n higher public offices should be subject to election not appointment by relatives. The corruption in South Dakota that our nation hears about is ongoing likely because of all the family support and family connected offices in the state. South Dakota needs to clean house.

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