The Legislature got a little skittish about raising the salaries of sitting members of South Dakota’s Executive Branch. Thus, instead of offering Jason Ravnsborg the chance to delay his trial and impeachment and hang onto the Attorney Generalship long enough to nab an extra 2.8% raise in his final paychecks, the Legislature has changed the pay-raise date in House Bill 1232 from 2022 to 2023, after the next election, in which Jason Ravnsborg will surely not be on the ballot.
Delaying HB 1232’s raise to 2023 also mostly moots the raise for the Attorney General. Assuming state employees get 2.5% raises in each of the coming years, the A.G.’s annual pay on July 1, 2023, would rise to $128,125. Without HB 1232, the A.G.’s pay is on track to reach $127,722 that year. Thus HB 1232 adds just $403, or 0.32%, to the A.G.’s pay.
The other constitutional officers affected by HB 1232 still come out better. Even with the extra year wait, the next Governor gets a raise of $5,400 (4.2%), and the Secretary of State, Auditor, Treasurer, and Commissioner of School and Public Lands each get an extra $13,600 (13.3%).
These raises are based in part on a somewhat faulty claim that pay for our highest elected offices needs to compete with “market rates” for elected officials in other states:
Right now, constitutional officers get an annual cost of living adjustment. But Ryan Brunner, South Dakota School and Public Lands Commissioner, said those incremental wage increases haven’t kept up with the rate of inflation or market rates for similar positions. For example, constitutional officers in North Dakota make $10,000 or more than their counterparts in South Dakota [Joe Sneve, “Should South Dakota’s Attorney General, Governor Get a Raise? Lawmakers Are Grappling with the Choice,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2021.03.01].
South Dakota’s top elected offices are not subject to the same market rates that other jobs are. Marty Jackley isn’t looking at his job prospects and thinking, “Gee, South Dakota only pays $118,600 for its Attorney General; Minnesota is paying Keith Ellison $121,250! I’ll move there and run!” Billie Sutton isn’t going to weigh South Dakota’s gubernatorial salary of $118,700 against Minnesota’s $127,600 and move from Burke to Burnsville to launch Billie for Minnesota 2022. Political candidates don’t have that kind of job mobility, and they run knowing they’re going to spend more money getting elected than they’ll make back in office.
The Senate gave final approval to HB 1232 on Tuesday on a 27–8 vote. The bill now goes to the Governor’s desk.
Related Fiscal Responsibility: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz gave himself and his staff a 10% pay cut last April to save taxpayer dollars during the coronavirus pandemic. In December he extended that pay cut through this June. Funny to see South Dakota leaders throwing more money at government while Minnesota’s leaders take less… especially when our current Governor could pay for a hundred HB 1232-sized raises for herself with the coronavirus relief checks she wrote to her brothers.
Again and again, “market forces” and “neighboring states’s compensations” are arguments used only for the convenience of top administrative positions. When schools and rank-and-file state workers make the SAME arguments for salary increases they are told 1) about the great quality of life in SD that mitigates the need to make money, and 2) if you love “fillips in name of state that pays better” so much, then move there.
New South Dakota state motto: “Under God-Hypocrisy Rules”
SD ‘pedestrian killer’ AG and Gov ‘loves the media’ Noem make more than enough. It’s embarassingly high when compared to MNs AG Ellison measly $121000 in a state of 5.8 million people . The decency of Walz to take a pay cut shows how much he cares about people before his own self-interests. MN really does know how to vote the good ones in office. ;)