Governor Dennis Daugaard’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Teachers and Students meets again next week Wednesday, September 9 out at the country club. After one more morning slideshow from the Department of Education, the legislators, administrators, businesspeople—oh yeah, and a couple teachers—will finally get down to discussing their own tenets, goals, and next steps.
Those next steps will be constrained, of course, by the Governor’s willingness to increase state revenue, which will be an inevitable and major part of any effort to meaningfully fund South Dakota’s K-12 schools and counteract the teacher shortage.
For guidance, the Blue Ribbon panel should direct the Governor’s attention to Nevada, where Republican Governor Brian Sandoval this year got a new Republican legislature to sign on to big tax increases to overhaul an obsolete K-12 funding formula:
The money will help fund a $7.4 billion general fund and boost state K-12 education funding by nearly 16 percent to $2.85 billion.
It will also add about $400 million to the Distributive School Account, a coffer for public school funding separate from the general fund. It is the largest tax in state history.
The measure passed by a vote of 18-3.
The three Republican no votes were from Sens. Pete Goicoechea, James Settelmeyer and Donald Gustavson.
Sandoval was one of at least 10 Republican governors nationwide who proposed increasing taxes this year.
…[Sandoval’s plan] includes the extension of sunset taxes in SB483 that raise more than $600 million by increasing rates on the payroll and sales tax. It also raises the tax on a pack of cigarettes from 80 cents to $1.80.
The provisions in AB464 — the Nevada Revenue Plan — will raise at least $510 million every two years.
The bill also increases rates on the state’s payroll tax, while adding a new business filing fee and creating a gross receipts tax.
The gross receipts tax will have 27 rates, depending on the business type and revenues. Businesses earning less than $4 million will be exempt.
For companies making more than $200,000 a year, rates on the payroll tax will be increased from 1.17 percent to 1.475 percent, with mining and financial institutions paying 2 percent. Businesses will be able to credit 50 percent of their gross receipts tax against the payroll tax.
…The measure will also levy fees on out-of-state companies that earn revenues from business transactions in Nevada [Kyle Roerink, “How Nevada’s GOP Governor Got Tax Increases Through the Legislature,” Tribune News Service via Governing, 2015.06.03].
Payroll taxes, a somewhat progressive gross receipts tax… and Republicans passed them to help K-12 education. Blue Ribboneers, if Nevada can do it, so can we. We know the problem: low teacher pay. We know the solution: raise teacher pay. Now we just need the Republicans in Pierre to act like Republicans in Carson City and other sensible capitals and pony up their fair share to support K-12 education.
Governor Daugaard has over 3 years left on his term, and he says he won’t be running for office again when he’s done. This longstanding education funding problem presents an opportunity for him to craft a legacy for himself. If he is able to solve this problem with bold policies, where other governors did not, then it will make his governorship a success and become his legacy much like the credit card industry is Governor Janklow’s legacy. Solving this problem will reverberate throughout the SD economy for decades or longer. If it takes tax increases like in Nevada, then so be it. They should also consider pulling more out of the Education Enhancement Trust Fund.
Something else that Nevada has is legalized medical marijuana. The laws need to be changed so that South Dakota can have the funding for education like Nevada and so many others do. Daugaard could have a wonderful legacy of education as well as health improvement if he would just do it.
If SD wants to gain money off of marijuana taxes, they need to legalize marijuana across the board. If we are legalizing “medical” marijuana for tax revenue, then we need to tax Viagra, Botox, etc. the same way.
If people want to burn one down, so be it, if they think it makes them feel better, so be it, but the way medical marijuana is currently used, it does not align well with medicine, medicine’s version of medical marijuana is already available in Dronabinol.
That said, sin taxes could be a good way to help enhance education funding.
Here’s another issue that has bipartisan support in Nevada: opposition to high-level radioactive waste repositories.
I’ve linked a recent Congressional Research Service Report on current government activity on the issue. These issues are live right now in the Senate and the House. They may be decided in September. Thune, Rounds and Noem could have a significant voice in opposing the Obama Administration’s rush to site nuclear facilities in states against the will of the people by opposing federal funding for all of these programs.
Further, policy matters put forward by several Senators would set up a phony “consent.” Finding a compliant Governor to bend over for Obama is not “consent.” In that regard, Gov. Daugaard could once and for all make it clear that he will not allow South Dakota to be tested for disposal of radioactive wastes in deep boreholes or shale.
Here’s the link:
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33461.pdf
It appears the new Nevada commerce tax is going to be challenged by a referendum. With only 55,000 signatures needed to be collected by June 2016 and considering a similar gross margin tax was voted down by 80% in the 2014 election, it appears this very well could succeed. Since the new tax is estimated to generate $230M in revenues, the entire education finance package could come unglued. It’s ironic Cory, that while you condemn the SD Legislature for ignoring the will of the people with it’s minor changes to the new minimum wage law voted in by the people, you only have kudos and huzzahs for the more egregious actions of the Nevada Assembly.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/politics/government/nevada-commerce-tax-challenge-be-filed-next-week
Donald, yah think daugaard whispered in obama’s ear that heather wilson’s sdsm&t will solve our nation’s nuke waste disposal problem.
coyote-minor vs. egregious??
MD-you mean we tax milk but not viagra? wow
thanks for link. kind of a tongue in cheek question but we already shot off hundreds if not thousands of nuclear weapon tests a few miles from Yucca Mtn, at the test range in the next valley west of area 51(OOOOHHH). is it too fractured there to pour in more highly radioactive waste, including co-mingled military grade nuclear waste? i am glad you are watching this donald.
Leslie,
Let’s assume Yucca Mountain is licensed for high level radioactive waste, as many Republicans want, and let’s assume things work out great. Republicans will pat themselves on the back for solving the nuclear waste problem once and for all, right? Well, licensing Yucca Mountain doesn’t solve the problem, because there has to be a second, maybe a third repository to hold all the high-level waste that is currently being generated. Yucca Mountain isn’t big enough to do the job. So, almost immediately Republicans are going to come face-to-face with the lie they’ve been telling to the American public. Now, folks like Daugaard, Heather Wilson, etc., know the Republicans are lying about Yucca Mountain, both about its safety and about its sufficiency, and they want to get in on the action for the second repository, or for the separated defense wastes (Thanks, Obama!!!) that Muniz thinks can be disposed in deep boreholes in eastern South Dakota. There is some question whether there is any Congressional authority for Obama to proceed with any study on deep borehole disposal, and they are trying to get this through the appropriations process. No appropriation, no study. The US House does not want Obama’s strategy, and I’m inclined to support the House measure, because it’s all based on hallucinations and lies, which is far better than Obama’s policy, which might turn South Dakota radioactive, particularly since they seem to be fudging on “consent” for the defense wastes.
In the meantime, of course, the minions at the Department of Energy, the agency Rounds promised to terminate (so far I haven’t seen the bill, Mike), are issuing “Requests For Proposals” to get dip shit Governors, like Daugaard, to send in a proposal to sell out the state as a nuclear dump, though it’s disguised as “a study.” The Request for Proposal strategy, of course, is supposed to generate lobbying pressure from state Governors to go along with the Obama/Senate version of these proposed nuclear waste laws and appropriations. Which brings us to Rounds and Thune and Noem. Are they going to sell out the state in one gigantic Republican orgy of whoredom, or are they going to stand up and oppose Obama, not on keeping health care away for South Dakota citizens, but on keep radioactive waste from ruining the state? My guess is Rounds and Thune are going to do a Daugaard: lie, hide information, deny, and vote to stick South Dakota with a nuclear waste dump. Time for some Democrat to make this an issue. Thune will beat himself on it, if he goes along with Obama’s nuclear waste policies.
Where is the pony show at.
Mr. Pay, there are no nuclear waste dumps. You just have that on the brain so bad it is like a religion, maybe Methodism, with you.
I note that from the blue link Mr. H posted this meeting is in Pierre at some fancy joint. How come if the meeting is in Pierre they can’t hold it in the super fancy meeting rooms the legislatures spent millions on? That is just insaner than most. The BluRT-F needs to meet in the rooms the tax payers already pay for and not run up double bills. I get that Mr. H and others don’t trust the BluRT-F being headed where it is, but gollly! Wasting money in the meantime seems really silly.
Grudz,
Check out the airports in South Dakota on October 19. That’s when the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will meet to discuss deep borehole disposal of high level radioactive waste. I suspect there will be some South Dakota folks in attendance. Maybe with your vast knowledge and insight into this matter, you can reveal to us who is attending. II the briefings appended to this link you will see RESPEC, a South Dakota consulting firm mentioned, and a maps indicating South Dakota as a potential site. Nice attempt at spin and obfuscation, Grudz, but no one’s buying it.
http://www.nwtrb.gov/meetings/2015/oct/comoct20.html
the pony show (1980 EIS) was considering “disposal of “commercially generated” nuclear waste]…because of favorable retrievability…in continental ice sheets”. they [Regent’s heather wilson’s sdsm&t-types] thought destruction of greenland was superior to destruction of sd shalebeds so municipal baled waste became sd’s genie. energy.gov (sandia labs 2011)
the dog show is now granitic rocks or shale. out front is CSU GOLDEN with shale and Denver-Julesberg basin of Niobrara formation studies, w/ sdsm&t milling around the starting gate. AGU seminar meets in SF! (dec 2015)
grudz-replace ” with [. thankyou
Don, you know where you can stick your irony. I cheer the Nevada Legislature and Governor for finding the courage to fund K-12 education properly. If they can’t convince their electorate to support such a wise move, then they will have failed as responsible leaders… and their voters, while exercising their popular sovereignty, will have made the wrong choice. No inconsistency there on my part, but thanks for playing. Next!
Plus, “Don Coyote”, read the entire article that I cited:
Different beasts, comparable in a way, but not at all like the affronts to the initiative process attempted this year by the SDGOP. “Don”, your attempt at partisan and personal bickering again stands in the way of finding a solution to a clear and present problem in SD K-12 education.
grudz-david newquist’s Northern County Beacon article digs into the governors’ economic development debacle with Barrick preserving the Homestake hole for Regent’s science manipulation, which parallels locating granitic deep bore-holes under eastern SD and shale deposition for more waste atomic particles. kinda like denying global warming science, to keep capitalism afloat for the 1%, eh?
destroy the state for a rich guy, destroy the world for another rich guy. that’s your obstructionist party right?