While the Legislature struggles to agree on any plan for comprehensive tax reform, anti-hunger advocate Cathy Brechtelsbauer of Sioux Falls notes that the state already hands provides many millions in property tax relief to homeowners. Pay particular attention to Brechtelsbauer’s last sentence:
It cost the state $171,922,177 of state revenue to provide owner-occupied tax relief on the property taxes we pay this year. This hefty sum should be acknowledged in any discussion of additional relief.
Years ago, South Dakota created an Owner-Occupied (OO) classification for homes and began a program of property tax relief. Every year since, the property tax on each owner-occupied home is reduced. The state reimburses school districts for these homeowner tax breaks.
Maybe you didn’t know you are receiving this relief. It should be noted on our tax statements, such as this example for an owner-occupied home with $300,000 taxable value in the Sioux Falls school district: “This tax obligation has been reduced by $945.30 in accordance with South Dakota’s Property Tax Reduction Program begun in 1995.”
How much is your own relief? Your owner-occupied home’s relief equals the difference between your owner-occupied tax and what it would have been if not owner-occupied. Multiply your home’s “taxable value” by the following levy fraction that represents that difference in your school district: Sioux Falls .003151, Harrisburg .003093, Brandon Valley .002709, Tea Area .0027, Dell Rapids .0027, Baltic .002696, Canton .0027, Garretson .003862, Tri Valley .003169, Lennox .002693, West Central .003023, Montrose .002693, Parker .002696, Alcester .003184, Beresford .003284, Centerville .002705, Flandreau .002696.
Homeowners can appreciate this relief the state is providing for them.
Renters, alas, get none of it, even though they pay property tax indirectly through their rents. Any additional tax relief should help renters and, for sure, not further burden them with higher tax on their food and other taxed basic expenses [link added; Cathy Brechtelsbauer, letter to the editor, received by DFP 2026.02.16].
None of the property tax proposals considered so far by the Legislature have talked about how to extend tax relief to renters. Republican proposals raise sales taxes or raid public school budgets or both, without providing any direct relief to non-homeowners. House Bill 1281, a Democratic proposal that House Taxation will likely kill today, doesn’t address property taxes directly, but it proposes to take pressure off school tax levies by diverting revenue from an increased sales tax rate to a school building fund. HB 1281 gives renters and everyone else a break by exempting food from sales tax, but it still relies on more regressive sales tax collected on other purchases.
Homeowners may holler over increasing property taxes, but they already get a tax break that renters don’t get.
My legislator mentioned her daughter pays $17,000 a year in property taxes. I pointed out that while I don’t begrudge someone owning a home, it is difficult for me to empathize here since $17,000 is close to my yearly take home pay.