Governor Rhoden may have gotten six county commissions to adopt his sales-tax-for-property-tax swap, but in two counties that have put the 2026 SB 96 optional tax to a public vote, public voters have lived up to spring polling and said cutting property tax for homeowners isn’t worth raising sales tax on everybody:
Brown County commissioners chose to put the tax on the ballot, while Codington County residents gathered petition signatures to force a vote. In Brown County, 56% of voters opposed the tax. In Codington County, 60% did, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s Office.
Shelly Alvine, a Codington County resident, helped lead the petition drive and called the result a “nice outcome.”
Alvine said voters were “voting with their pocketbook” as inflation strains household budgets, and she called the rejection “decisive.” Renters, she added, wouldn’t have benefited from lower property taxes while paying higher sales taxes.
“If you could look a person in the eye and ask them for $50 to pay for your property tax, that’s what you’re asking them to do with this sales tax,” Alvine said.
Alvine said the results should give other counties reason to pause before pursuing their own sales taxes. Voters in Clay and Charles Mix counties will decide on theirs in special elections Nov. 17.
“I think that’s a good reason for the Legislature, before passing off their decisions on South Dakotans and the counties, to look for other ways to make property tax relief more equitable,” Alvine said [Makenzie Huber, “Voters in Two South Dakota Counties Reject Local Sales Taxes for Property Tax Reductions,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.11.04].
Two more counties have put the optional sales-tax-for-property-tax swap to a public vote. Clay and Charles Mix counties will vote next week on November 17 on accepting SB 96’s offer to raise sales tax in order to lower homeowner property tax. Yankton County was going to enact the SB 96 but last week apparently backed away.
Worth noting: at least two of those referrals, in Codington and Clay counties, have been driven in part by good Democrats (Alvine in Watertown, Caitlin Collier in Vermillion) who recognize (a) the power of petitions and (b) that sales taxes are regressive and that making renters and low-/middle-income folks pay for tax breaks on millionaire mansions isn’t really fair.
Rhoden’s biggest accomplishment he campaigned on was his biggest property tax reduction in state history bill. Voters voted for Rhoden, but not his tax bill. Voters voted republican, but rejected the republican pushed amendment to change the SD constitution to make it more difficult for citizens to change the constitution. Similarly, voters rejected the change to the Medicaid bill pushed by republicans.
This has happened many times in the past where SD voters rejected republican pushed concepts. SD voters vote republican, but do not support the ideas that those people they voted for come up with. I always find this interesting.
Voting for Governor L or Governor Sales Tax Hike, well, does that really help us at all?
Red White and Blue-hoo Red dudes so quick to raise the sales tax and then blame it on “socialist communist” Democrats!
Such control freaks!
Voting Republican does not keep things the same. It changes things backward, towards the 1850’s !
Hopefully, 2028 will when Souith Dakotans go forward into brighter futures and that is Blue Tsunami for all of us!
Sourcing Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) South Dakota is ranked #6 in the list of most regressive tax structures in the United States of America.
Minnesota is ranked #2 least regressive( Most Progressive) tax structure in the United States of America.