I’m listening to Lori Walsh on SDPB this lunch hour pish-toshing criticism of Governor Kristi Noem’s nepotistic favors to her daughters as misogyny. As usual, Lori Walsh misses the real story to put on a show of journalistic equanimity and soft moral hauteur. For the record, Lori, my criticism of Governor Noem’s nepotism and other errors is based not on Noem’s sex but on her nepotism and other errors.
But right now, I want to focus on the Kevin Woster blog post that prompted Walsh’s pish-toshery. Woster writes about an angry query from a woman in Rapid City about why Woster and the press weren’t reporting on the Governor’s allowing her daughters to live in the mansion while the Governor lives back at the farm in Hamlin County. Good reporter Woster asks around to get the facts:
Kristi Noem lives in the governor’s residence during the week and is home on the farm near Castlewood many weekends.
The governor’s daughter, Kassidy, and her husband, Kyle Peters, who works for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, have their own residence in Pierre. It’s not the governor’s mansion.
The governor’s other daughter, Kennedy, who works in the governor’s office, also lives in Pierre. I’m not sure where she lives exactly. And I guess that’s her business. I’m not too worried about it [Kevin Woster, “Where Does Noem Call Home? And Does It Really Matter?” SDPB: On the Other Hand, 2020.03.03].
Woster says he prefers that elected officials live at the seat of government while serving, but he notes that times change, and that even the new chief of staff will be commuting:
People live all over the place now, often far from where they work. They also don’t carry much cash in their billfolds, if they have billfolds at all. Things change. Boy, how they change. I have trouble keeping up.
So, if Kristi Noem’s residency is more fluid than a governor’s residency might have been at one time, she’s probably living closer to the modern realities than I am. Her new chief of staff, Tony Venhuizen, for example, will continue to “live” in Sioux Falls while commuting and telecommuting to his job in Pierre.
I have no doubt that he can pull that off, or that the state will get its money’s worth. Nor do I have any doubt that Noem will put in the time she needs to do the job she was elected to do [Woster, 2020.03.03].
I’ve been asked at various times to consider running for statewide office. I have always demurred, saying that I cannot ask my family to move to Pierre. My daughter has school, my wife has work, and I choose not to disrupt their labors and love by asking that they move with me to another town for a temporary job. As a family, we’ve just barely been able to rationalize the prospect of my serving as a part-time legislator and being away from the family for ten weeks each winter and various interim trips through the year. I suspect I’m not the only person interested in public service who has turned down opportunities in state government for that reason.
But if Kevin is right and times have changed, might Governor Noem and Chief of Staff Venhuizen be opening the door for more South Dakotans to serve in state government? If the Governor can do her job from a barn northeast of Hayti, and if Tony Venhuizen can manage an entire administration with a phone call and a few clicks from Josiah’s in downtown Sioux Falls, then who’s to say other top state officials couldn’t do their jobs from locations dispersed around the state?
Perhaps an Attorney General could manage the state’s lawyers from Madison.
Perhaps the Secretary of Education could work from an office in Watertown.
Perhaps Public Utilities Commissioners could live in three different cities in three different parts of the state and conduct every meeting by teleconference.
And perhaps allowing more state officials and employees to live somewhere other than Pierre will ease the Janklovian control that party leaders are able to exert over state workers concentrated in one isolated company town and make it easier for state employees to speak and act according to their consciences without less risk of retribution.
As your next Governor, I’m pleased to know that residency in Pierre is no longer a requirement for serving in state government. I look forward to maximizing our use of broadband technology to ensure that our state government talent pool is no longer limited by geography. Live where you like, and serve the state you love!
But wherever you live, don’t use your office to do favors for your kids. That’s still naughty.
Woster has fawned over GNOem since she ran against Herseth. Gwad, kind of a schoolboy prom queen crush thingy, the way he swooned in his Mt. Blogmore site. That said, I think it’s time to eliminate the legislature as well. They should be able to screw us from their own shacks while they decimate ours. Why not a teleconference to act important? We have to pay mileage for those commutes so it would be cheaper to pay the cable charges.
Dimdot Alaska guv Caribou Barbie dove back and forth to the guv’s office and collected a per diem for doing so. Pure greed, it seems to me. Of course, when Palin wanted to use her tanning bed, she had to got to the capitol to use it.
Is it necessary, in times of tough budgets (see red states), to pay for two homes for these fools?
Might be missing the bigger picture as I’m guessing it is much more lucrative to the federal tax return to conduct state business at your farm or your office in Sioux Falls. Its all deductible.
How many of the Officials Cabinet reside outside of the capital city? Dozens, I bet. Dozens. Why do people care? Because people are nosy bossturds and get all wadded up about the most dumb things.
It’s disappointing that Walsh tried to use misogyny as a cover for Klueless Kristi’s nepotism.
If the lege met via teleconference they’d be safe from the nefarious nastiness of those lazy lobbyists. Right “Grudz”? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
This remote and gig-economy is the PERFECT opportunity to cut the ridiculous socialism benefit where the state pays state workers extra for working in Sioux Falls under the guise of “cost of living”. This nonsense INCENTIVIZES state workers to work from Sioux Falls. There is no legal state requirement for them to work in Sioux Falls. They could work from Faith.
Grudz, I suspect the number is hundreds . . . I’ll let the BOP, IRS residence records, and the investigative journalists to prove that wrong.
Jerry, yes, South Dakota would function better with a 51 senator unicameral legislature, as does Nebraska. But, alas, South Dakota covets government for the sake of government.
Cibvet, I don’t think Noem and Venhuizen, as government employees, can claim the home office deduction. Let’s review IRS Publication 587:
Similar points would prevent elected legislators from taking the home office deduction if we let them legislate by teleconference from home.
Mike, if Kristi and Tony get paid any per diem for their commuting, would we have something to complain about? I’m pretty sure we don’t owe Kristi any compensation for driving back and forth to the farm when we provide her free lodging in Pierre.
I lived in Pierre for 8 years. There is always gossip about any Governor and their living situation, their kids, etc. I never paid much attention to it.
If Noem is in Pierre 5 days a week, that’s about all people can ask for, isn’t it? Janklow did a lot of traveling back to his house in Brandon. I remember getting passed on the highway a couple times as Janklow sped by. I think Mickeson commuted to Brookings a lot the first year due to his family situation, but he ended up in the Governor’s Mansion
Pierre the seat of state government. If you are doing your job managing the ship of state you had better be where the helm is at least 5 days out of 7.
Someday when the Governor is a dis-embodied brain formerly known as my good friend Bob, located in a bunker in the sticks and protected by a private goon squad, everybody will fight over who gets to live in the hepa filtered Governor’s mansion to avoid the Covoidvirus spread by squirrels.
Do you know what insaner law bill that has been talked about but has not been dropped into the legislatures is related to this? The law bill that says that all welfare recipients getting money from the State of South Dakota all must live in Sioux Falls 5 days a week. We could close a bunch of offices and cut a lot of administrators and save taxpayers a lot of money, plus get all these people in one location, Sioux Falls, where they could be more adequately cared for and loved.
Expect some senator fellow to bring this bill in the next sessions.
Welfare residency requirements? There must be a Constitutional case against that.
Grudzilla’s bill is a wingnut wet fever dream.
Won’t this kill Pierre (the actual town)? If more and more of the administrative/better paying positions leave town, doesn’t that put downward pressure on the positions and wages of those left behind – people whose positions are not mobile? Doesn’t that skew the property tax base downward?
Is it right for Sioux Falls (or Castlewood) to reap the benefits of Pierre’s employment?
Here ya go Cory:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/section-1/durational-residency-requirements#fn2090amd14
Re: Home office deduction
For those thinking the IRS’s allowance of a deduction for home office expenses is a great deal, think again. As I understand it: First, the IRS rules are definitive and strict. Cory cited some of them; I’d add the fact that a home office must be used exclusively as an office – it can’t be a part-time game room or guest room, for example. More importantly, the value of the home office deduction must be take into account when the house is sold. Claiming the home office deduction increases the taxable portion of proceeds from a house sale.
Of course, check with a qualified tax advisor on the benefits and pitfalls of any tax strategy!
O, you’re probably right: state government is Pierre’s biggest employer. I’d be curious to survey new residents and see what percentage move there solely for the purpose of working for state government and what percentage move to Pierre for reasons for other opportunities.
But is Sioux Falls or Castlewood’s benefit from Noem’s and Venhuizen’s part-timing in Pierre any worse than Pierre’s benefit from Legislators’ part-timing, or South Dakota’s efforts to draw tax-dodging retirees from other states, or any other recruiting effort made by any community to entice people away from where they might live and work otherwise?
From a purely financial perspective, suppose we could save a lot of money by dispersing state employees to offices around the state and handling more functions by teleconference instead of putting miles on cars based in Pierre. Are those state budget savings more important than subsidizing the economies of any one town?
And what of the participatory and public service benefits? What if not requiring state officials and other currently-Capitol-located employees to live in Pierre meant the state would get more qualified applicants to serve the public?