The state plans to abandon a great office complex right in the middle of Sioux Falls, near lots of low-income folks who benefit greatly from being able to walk to Job Service and the Departments of Health and Social Services, and consolidate those operations with several other state agencies in a new building it will lease at Dawley Farm out on the east edge of town.
The Board of Pharmacy is one of the state entities that would move. They aren’t downtown; they’re on West 49th, right across from the Empire Mall and Hy-Vee. The board voted against moving Thursday, because, says board exec Kari Shanard-Koenders. moving nine miles across town would raise their rent, which pharmacists, not the state, pay for with licensing fees that support the board’s $2.1-million annual budget:
The pharmacy board doesn’t receive any general state funding from the Legislature and relies instead on licensing fees and other revenue.
“Due to the anticipated increase of an estimated 271% for the Board of Pharmacy’s rent, the Board of Pharmacy is respectfully requesting to not participate in moving its offices to the Sioux Falls One Stop building,” her letter said.
“Moving to the new site will require the BOP (Board of Pharmacy) to increase fees over and above a level with which the Legislature would be comfortable doing in 2026, to take effect in 2027, and the likelihood of needing to subsequently continue to request increases every few years,” her letter continued. “We have a bill (legislation) to introduce this year just to survive, because we are nearly in deficit spending due to being told to spend our assets down, events beyond our control, and increased costs” [Bob Mercer, “State Board of Pharmacy Doesn’t Want to Move,” KELO-TV, 2023.09.14].
And for nearly quadruple the money, the board would get less work space:
It’s not my favorite thing to talk about,” she told the board. “It would be very nice, but we don’t have the amenities that we have in ours.”
The pharmacy board would share space in the new building with the state Board of Nursing, according to Shanard-Koenders, and would have less square footage than at its current site [Mercer, 2023.09.14].
The Board of Pharmacy has a space that meets its needs and doesn’t bust its tight budget. The state doesn’t save any general funds by moving the Board to its new leased Sioux Falls One Stop. It seems the state should find some other tenant for the corner of the Dawley complex that the pharmacy honchos don’t want.
This morning at the Conservatives with Common Sense the Opening Rant will be about big government overreach into private businesses and whether we should have these whiney boards at all. Why not one board to rule them all instead of a 100 little boards for every little thing? Government boards should stay out of business matters and let the market rule. Or should they? Come and listen as you slurp your gravy taters and then join in the debates.
No one who regularly prescribes gravy taters could have anything even remotely meaningful to say about pharmacy on any level.
grudznick doesn’t need some whiney board to tell me much about niacin and garlic extract for passing gravy through my system.
Schriever; Like himself, Grudz thinks one board should know ALL thingies about everything-hence there’s NO need for multiple boards doing government work. Yep, traffic engineering, plumbing, electricity and paharmace-they’re all the same thing, don’t need ’em; save $$$!!!
You are righter than right, Mr. Kammerer. We need to knock down a whole bunch of these boards, contract them, and we start with the ones that whine the most, or the first. Mark down grudznick’s words here as I write them, there will the some in the legislatures who want to bonk the whiniest boards right on the nogging. It is a grudznick prognostication, this, because I will float my own law bill against this particular whiney board myownself if I have to. But when the word is out that grudznick is gunning for whiney boards, the other boards will huddle and cower. I’m just sayin…
Also, 33 counties and 66 school districts. Consolidation is the word of the decade. Gird your loins, governments with your hands out, the legislatures might be coming for you soon.
I can agree with consolidation where it makes sense, not where it’s just a goofball idea tossed off without thinking. Jake took a minute to think about this idea and pointed out why it could never work. Counties do about the same things, and so do school districts. Consolidation would work there. Not so boards overseeing vastly different professions. Move on, Grudz. Your idea won’t work.
My idea will work, Mr. Pay.
Board of Mining combined with Board of Digging; Board of Hairdressers combined with Board of Massage; Board of Electricians combined with Board of Plumbers and Air Conditioners.
It will work.
If you fired all these boards, and had One Board to Rule Them All, the OBRTA could have fellows who were paid darn good money, like maybe $50/hour, to be experts in all areas. And in Rapid City, $50/hour is not to be sneezed at if you are a blue collar fellow hanging around East North Street. We could round up a good slate of Board Members in a week, just by canvasing with a small group of interviewers.
They just did this in Rapid City. The brand new State of SD building opened in early summer. Various departments have spent the summer closing their old locations and moving to the new building.
Behind Lowes, on the North side of the Mall, is where the brand new office building was built. It houses, among others, the DMV, the Lottery Office, The Dept of Labor, Dept of Social Services, as well as several others. The DMV used to be south of town, the DOL previously was about 2 miles away, and the Lottery office was part of a strip-mall. Now they are all at the same location.
The State must be doing this consolidation as part of a bigger picture plan.
Or…. there is a sweetheart deal with the owners of the new buildings, so they can charge a lot more rent to the various departments in the State of SD.
We conservatives, Ms. Linda, like smaller and more efficient governments. Behind the mall is a good place.
We need new, tall and imposing buildings to hide the inefficiency of State Government behind high walls. And….there are handsome paydays for everyone involved.
That is why the Deep State behind the boards is against the consolidations, Mr. Blundt. The Deep State has their pockets lined by the boards, and the meetings and fees. Every whiney board would have their own office building in Pierre if we Conservatives with Common Sense don’t maintain a vigilance.
grudznichts, in his simplest mindset, doesn’t realize that consolidation doesn’t make any less work. Small government is inefficient, ineffective, and in the interest of no one. It’s thinking like this that keeps SD within the bottom five states in nearly every necessary category.
Boards often provide needed oversight, but I wonder if some boards are actually insular turf protecting regulators, restricting interstate commerce. Mr. Grudznick, next week I must temporarily suspend some of my current Freedoms with a trip to the Freedom State. I have things to do and really like gravy taters. Should the Common Sense Conservatives be klatching in the Hill City environs I would be honored to accept an invitation as Guest Ranter. I can relate how the State Medical Board granted a license to an incompetent surgeon, one who had practiced in multiple states and had been repeatedly disciplined and sued. Unfortunately he crossed paths with my Dad before this became local public knowledge. Nobody lives forever, but the botched surgery certainly hastened his demise. Then the Doc decamped for parts unknown. Board failure, in my opinion.
Phil-rest assured that grudzie will put your great reason odd as an anomaly.