Last updated on 2018-01-11
The Attorney General’s office apparently put more miles on their cars in Fiscal Year 2017. According to documents reviewed by the Government Operations and Audit Committee last month, the A.G.’s office spent 73% more on travel than its average travel budget in the three preceding fiscal years:
Almost $106,000 for travel in FY2017 is the most spent since Jackley’s tenure in the A.G.’s office began in 2009. The next highest was FY2013, when the office racked up almost $90,000 in travel costs.
The increased budget likely reflects increased mileage, not increased fuel prices. I checked average annual gas prices, averaged adjoining years to get a July–June fiscal year average, then took the A.G.’s annual travel spending (see FY2008–2011 here, FY2011–2014 here), divided by that per gallon cost, and then multiplied by 25 miles per gallon, to get an estimate of how far that travel budget would have taken Jackley and his assistants if they’d done nothing but drive:
| Calendar year | Annual gas price US | SD Fiscal Year (FY) average | AG travel spending (FY) | Estimated ground miles |
| 2008 | 3.299 | |||
| 2009 | 2.406 | 2.85 | $17,774.88 | 155,783 |
| 2010 | 2.835 | 2.62 | $10,791.72 | 102,955 |
| 2011 | 3.576 | 3.21 | $15,794.58 | 123,183 |
| 2012 | 3.68 | 3.63 | $51,021.09 | 351,579 |
| 2013 | 3.575 | 3.63 | $89,996.34 | 620,237 |
| 2014 | 3.437 | 3.51 | $54,594.41 | 389,293 |
| 2015 | 2.52 | 2.98 | $67,874.91 | 569,707 |
| 2016 | 2.25 | 2.39 | $60,624.71 | 635,479 |
| 2017 | 2.528 | 2.39 | $105,689.20 | 1,105,998 |
Gasoline prices don’t clearly reflect ups and downs in the the A.G.’s travel budget. Jackley and his team spent almost twice as much traveling in FY 2017 as they did in FY 2014 and almost ten times as much as in FY2010. Was there that much more crime for the Attorney General to chase around the state last year?
My friends at Democratic party headquarters suggest a political explanation:
Attorney General Marty Jackley’s thinly-veiled campaign press events in Sioux Falls and Rapid City yesterday highlight his habit of campaigning on taxpayer time:
- The Attorney General’s travel budget increased from $60,624.71 in FY2016 to $105,689.20 in FY2017, an increase of almost 75 percent while running for Governor.
- Jackley himself admits to campaigning during the work week: The Winner Advocate, December 20, 2017 – “Being South Dakota’s attorney general is his full time job and he explained a day or two a week or weekends he is able to get out and do some campaigning.”
- State government civil servants are prohibited from involvement in campaigns during work hours. Clearly, Jackley feels he is above the rules his employees must follow.
In 2018, the voters of South Dakota will remember that Marty Jackley is obviously more interested in running for his next government job than he is in doing the job they elected him to do [South Dakota Democratic Party, press release, 2018.01.04].
Jackley did travel all the way to Aberdeen Thursday to speak at a campaign event and stage a campaign photo opp at Washnoks’ motorcycle shop, followed by a 5 p.m. campaign stop in Eureka. Maybe we could call the 11 a.m. event Marty’s lunch hour, and maybe we can say the Eureka event was after working hours, but if Marty’s putting in his statutorily required full time effort during his normal working hours, he’d better have been taking a lot of calls and writing a lot of briefs in the campaign car…
…but that also had better be a campaign car, and not part of another record-breaking year of travel expenses listed in the A.G.’s state travel budget.
Hopefully he took leave and used personal means of travel. Otherwise we could have added the “corruption” tag to this article.
Agreed Timoteo, here is what he need do https://www.carsforsale.com/used-yugo-for-sale-C902975
Causal fallacy.
How is it so high this year? Is his administration using a bus or something. How does one build up 1 million miles in SD.
Speaking of the photo op wearing a suit at a motorcycle shop, Marty is the guy only from Sturgis who doesn’t ride a motorcycle. Kristi Noem surprised everyone in August by taking a motorcycle class and actually riding a Harley for the first time in her life at age 45. Noem may be late to the motorcycle game, and she’s probably only in it for the photo op, but she’s going to out-Sturgis Marty in 2018 if he doesn’t learn a new trick too, pronto.
All that car travel to lose all those cases.
Mr. Jackley funds corporate narcs driving cars all around, and their efforts fail, despite my support.
Mr. Howie, the overgodder, now wants to change the state’s motto. I support his efforts.
Jackley needs to release his entire travel logs and expenses since he declared his candidacy for governor.
I’m with Mr. C, here. Phone calls and emails, too.
Mr. Timoteo, I believe more digging into the car travels of Mr. Jackley needs to be done, but I bet he did not take leave. You may recall, as I know Mr. Pay does, back a few years ago there was a fellow named Mr. Butler who was the Treasurer. Mr. Butler never even bothered to come to work for months at a stretch. The point being that these elected fellows do not actually have to come to work if they don’t feel like it. The issue at hand is that Mr. Jackley may be using government cars and things to go campaigning about.
Campaigning on tax payer money.
What else would it be? Looks like Jackley has some explainin’ to do.
(oh that’s right in SD you don’t have to be held accountable when you are in the Club)
All that travel to lose all those cases—indeed, Bob! I wonder if maybe the travel logs would show that FY2017 brought a surge in investigations and court cases that required the AG’s staff to travel more.