In further rearrangement of Kristi Noem’s old furniture, Governor Larry Rhoden yesterday announced the resignation of the Corrections Secretary Noem imported from Colorado:
Gov. Larry Rhoden told South Dakota Searchlight that Kellie Wasko delivered the letter announcing her Oct. 20 departure on Tuesday, though the letter is dated Sept. 1.
News of the secretary’s resignation after 3½ years on the job came less than a day after a group of 20 lawmakers in the House of Representatives signed a letter calling on Rhoden to “clean up his Department of Corrections” before a Sept. 23 special session. That’s when lawmakers will be asked to endorse construction of a $650 million, 1,500-bed men’s prison in Sioux Falls.
The timing of the lawmaker letter was coincidental and “unfortunate,” Rhoden said.
“She had made up her mind, and she knew what she wanted to do,” the governor said. “She knew that this wasn’t getting better” [John Hult, “Prison Leader Quits as Prison Vote Looms,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.09.02].
Hmmm… by “this”, does Rhoden mean the problem-plagued penitentiary that Wasko and Noem failed to make better?
Rhoden acknowledges that getting rid of Wasko improves the chances that his plan to replace the pen will pass at the swiftly approaching Special Session:
The governor added that he had faith in Wasko in spite of criticisms of her management style and a wave of security incidents and controversies since 2023.
Despite that confidence, Rhoden said he recognizes that Wasko’s resignation will make it easier to convince the Legislature to back the $650 million project.
“You’re always looking for the hurdles that are going to give people a path to ‘no,’ and to remove those hurdles and give them more reasons to say ‘yes,’” Rhoden said [Hult, 2025.09.02].
Referring even obliquely to Wasko as a “hurdle” to be removed doesn’t sound like faith or confidence, but according to heavy-hitting non-wingnut Republican Representative Will Mortenson (R-24/Pierre), more hurdles remain for Rhoden to turn those 20 complaining lawmakers from his own party from nay to yea:
“The concerns that have been raised by law enforcement, prosecutors, corrections staff, corrections experts from South Dakota, are really on the operations, the safety of the inmates, the safety of the staff,” Mortenson said. “I think General Tim Reisch, who’s a former sheriff, current legislator, former head of DOC, set forth those operational concerns pretty explicitly and clearly a couple months ago, and just didn’t get really any response. We didn’t see any improvement, we didn’t see any acknowledgement really of those concerns.
“The second big one on the legislative side has to do with DOC basically telling us this had to be an $825-million-dollar facility six months ago, and then with credit to the task force and the contractor they now I think are going to have a good plan for a durable facility, but only at $650 million, and I think we’re owed an explanation of why wasn’t that the plan the whole time,” Mortenson continued.
Mortenson acknowledged that the design has changed from eight proposed units at the Lincoln County site to four proposed units at the Sioux Falls location. “But I guess the question is, why wasn’t that the plan back then?” he asked. “And it has to do with a more over-arching level of concerns that were brought up and looks to me were disregarded for too long. And I think they deserve serious consideration, and the top priority to me and frankly everybody on that list is to get this prison built, and seriously reckoning with these concerns is the number-one way to get that done.
“It’s serious consideration of these concerns is what we’re looking for and it hasn’t been provided to this point. There’s a reason why we didn’t put any names in or say this or that person has to be fired, because this is a responsible group of legislators that don’t hip-shoot and put things out for click-bait,” Mortenson said. “We want this done, we want this run, by a DOC we can have confidence in, and I’m hopeful that on September 23 that we can approve this prison and get it done, and kind of a fresh start at the DOC as well” [Bob Mercer, “Push in House for ‘Cleaning Up’ DOC Before Prison Vote,” KELO-TV, 2025.09.02].
We can’t blame Wasko entirely for the mess into which the penitentiary has fallen. The stardom-distracted Noem, with Rhoden as her Lieutenant Governor, let DOC slide into disarray for over three years before bringing in Wasko to try cleaning up her mess of neglect. Perhaps the removal of the biggest hurdle to replacing the penitentiary and reforming DOC isn’t Wasko’s resignation yesterday but Noem’s resignation last January.