Gov. Kristi Noem will deliver her annual budget address to lawmakers at the South Dakota State Capitol on Dec. 3, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Governor Kristi Noem could soon be installed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security. In one of her last official acts as governor, Noem managed to sow some uncertainty in South Dakota’s public education system.
During her budget speech, Noem claimed she wanted to “continue to prioritize education.” Notice she didn’t say, “Prioritize public education.” In what was likely her final budget address to the Legislature, Noem proposed an ongoing $4 million expenditure to help families afford private school tuition and other forms of alternative education.
Her generosity to families who wanted to pay for a private school education came during a budget speech in which she:
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Provides a paltry 1.25% funding increase for the “big three”: health care, public education, and state employee salaries.
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Revealed $71.9 million in cuts and discretionary changes.
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Included in the cuts are a $2 million cut to the Board of Regents and a $3.6 million cut to South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
Noem proposed that the state pay about $3,000 per student annually for private school education or alternative education. Private schools, homeschooling and other forms of alternative education operate under a different set of rules. It’s a real wild west of schools that can be unaccredited or accredited by someone other than the state. In other words, good luck figuring out how your tax dollars are spent.
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It is probably possible to find out how much money the state of South Dakota has invested in public education since statehood. Instead of doing the math, let’s assume it totals billions of dollars. It seems contradictory for the state to make these kinds of long-term investments in public education, only to turn around and start financing it.
Instead of tackling the bigger problems in public education, Noem has called the Legislature into a fight over an idea that is trendy in conservative circles. It is also an idea that the state cannot afford. Any state budget that proposes tens of millions in cuts will likely not have $4 million left over. If there is an additional $4 million in the state budget, it should be directed toward teacher salaries.
Through neglect and shortsightedness, lawmakers and the governor have allowed teacher salaries to sink to the bottom of the barrel nationwide. Noem’s proposed 1.25% increase in education funding certainly won’t do much to bring South Dakota’s national teacher salaries out of the basement.
Low teacher salaries mean South Dakota’s universities are training the next generation of teachers for surrounding states, which are making a bigger effort to pay teachers what they’re worth. When it becomes more difficult to attract qualified teachers because of South Dakota’s low salaries, school districts will be forced to cut back on their supply, hindering the very education that Noem says she has worked so hard to “prioritize.” give’.
The last time South Dakota made any progress on this issue was in 2016, when Gov. Dennis Daugaard led an effort to raise state taxes by half a percent, with some of the money going toward increasing salaries of teachers. Since then, lawmakers have cut state taxes and mandated a minimum salary of $45,000 for public school teachers, without offering any additional funding to help schools reach that goal.
Given the state of the budget Noem proposed, lawmakers would do well to focus their efforts on protecting public education and finding a funding source that could ensure the state’s teacher salaries are no longer a national disgrace .
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