South Dakota Searchlight gets Lieutenant Governor Tony Venhuizen to remind us how the Governor and Legislature get by with breaking the Janklow-era law that requires the state to increase K-12 funding by the lesser of 3% or inflation, not the 0% Tony’s boss has proposed for FY2027:
To get around mandatory funding increases, lawmakers amend the state education funding law. Instead of applying the mandatory increase to the prior year’s baseline funding, they reset the baseline.
The mandatory increase remains in the law, but only as a requirement for the next year. When the next year arrives, if legislators want to go below or above the minimum increase, they reset the baseline again as needed.
Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen said the index factor now serves more as a “guideline or a goal.”
“One Legislature can’t bind a future Legislature by statute,” Venhuizen said [Makenzie Huber, “How South Dakota Lawmakers Get Around a Law That ‘Dictates’ Increased Funding for Schools,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.01.05].
Gee, officer, I thought “Speed Limit 65” was a guideline or a goal, not a requirement. I’ll follow it next year, I promise.
The MAGAs take all laws as suggestions. It their way of life.
Venhuizen is correct, but when the system was created it was a solemn promise made by Governor Janklow and the Legilislators at that time—if school districts gave up their ability to tax above a certain inflation number, the state would follow through with the promised state funding. The lesson we get from Venhuizen is don’t trust the state to follow through on a goddamn thing.
So, the more Republican South Dakota gets the stingier and more cruel the residents become. Not only has the SDGOP failed Indigenous Americans by not expanding Medicaid it has failed veterans and the elderly: its historically loyal voter base. But hey, if Tony Venhuizen wants to feed from the Qochtopus gravy train he has to prove he’s numbed to the misery, hopelessness and despair his father-in-law and political party have heaped on South Dakotans.
But Larry Rhoden chose to target billionaire Illinois Governor JB Pritzker with a salad remark instead of reminding voters that Toby Doeden, Lt. Gov. Venhuizen, Isabel legislator Ryan Maher, State Senator Chris Karr and South Dakota blogger Pat Powers and his wife are hugely obese.