Legislature Springs Hearing on Teacher Pay Tax Plan (and Secret Alternative!) with Minimal Notice

Rep. Lee Schoenbeck has a really good idea, one that the Legislature needs to apply to itself right now.

Our favorite Watertown Republican is pushing House Bill 1066, which would require that two full business days pass between the time “the state and each state board, commission, or department” posts public notice of a meeting and the time that state entity holds that meeting.

Rep. Schoenbeck says that a Monday meeting needs to be posted on the preceding Wednesday. Such lead time would give citizens time to find out about the meeting, study the issues to be discussed, organize support or opposition, and rearrange their work and child-care schedules so they can attend the meeting.

The House thinks that two-day lead time is a great idea; they passed it unanimously last Tuesday.

Now, how about the House apply that same thinking to its committee meetings on bills?

One of the most important bills of the 2016 Session, House Bill 1182, the revenue-raising portion of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon teacher pay plan, comes before the House Committee on Appropriations this afternoon at 3 p.m. We wouldn’t know that looking at the HB 1182 webpage or at Friday’s House Journal, which says only that the half-penny sales tax increase proposal was referred to House Appropriations on Friday afternoon. We have to click over to the House Appropriations webpage to find the agenda for today’s afternoon meeting, which is dedicated to the teacher pay revenue proposal.

Under the Schoenbeck open meetings formula, HB 1182 wouldn’t come to a hearing until Wednesday. This meeting, on the most important revenue-generating proposal before the Legislature, on an issue crucial to the fiscal and cultural well-being of every community in the state, doesn’t hit the papers until this morning, thanks to Bob Mercer’s attentive scrutiny.

And we may not even have the actual funding proposal available for our review. Republican leaders are apparently hatching a secret alternative plan:

House Republican leader Brian Gosch of Rapid City has been working privately with other House Republicans to generate a rival proposal.

Their approach reportedly would function without a sales-tax tax increase and would provide money over three years through cuts in other parts of state government’s budget.

While Daugaard’s sales tax plan provides a steady, long-term funding mechanism, Gosch’s proposal so far has no guarantee that money would be available in years two and three. That might be irrelevant because they would avoid the tax-increase vote [Bob Mercer, “Governor’s Sales Tax for Teacher Pay Plans Heads Toward First Legislative Hurdle,” Rapid City Journal, 2016.02.08].

Between audience gasps and groans at the crackerbarrel in Sioux Falls Saturday, Rep. Jim Stalzer (R-11/Sioux Falls) told citizens that he is sworn to secrecy on where the rival GOP plan for teacher pay gets its funding. If we want to know how Stalzer and Gosch and the Republcians bucking against the Governor plan to fund higher teacher pay without raising taxes, we have to come to the House Appropriations meeting this afternoon… but it’s awfully hard for South Dakotans to come to Pierre or even make time to listen online to the meeting, let alone come to the meeting prepared to analyze the proposal and offer informed comment for or against, if the Legislature gives no effective notice of this meeting.

The House thinks Rep. Schoenbeck’s public-notice proposal is good for everyone else in state government. Rep. Schoenbeck’s colleagues should apply that proposal to themselves and the momentous decisions they make for all South Dakota citizens.