Executive Board

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Good, useful, and full of wonder.

SDPB.

I now call the executive board, uh, to order. Uh, Madam Secretary, will you call the roll, please?

Deibert?

Here.

Kolbeck?

Here.

Mehlhaff?

Here.

Otten?

Here.

Pischke?

Here.

Aylward? Aylward?

Excused.

Gosch?

Healy?

Here.

Heermann?

Here. Jamison? Here.

Mulder?

Here. Odenbach?

Here.

Larson?

Here. Hansen?

Here. Karr?

And I'm here.

Mr. Chair, you have a quorum.

We have a quorum. That's better. Is there— we have minutes to approve. Second.

Second.

Who was it down here?

Healy.

We have a motion by Representative Healy, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff. Any comments on those minutes? Any comments? Senator Pischke? Okay, seeing none, this is a voice vote. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Those are approved. Thank you very much. Okay, let's get into our agenda today. Uh, pretty short agenda. We got a few things to address. One, I'd like to set the dates, uh, for the executive board for the 2026 interim. We're going to talk a little bit about the interim studies that we're going to have that have been proposed. We can talk a little bit about the rankings and issue memorandums. And so that's what we have in front of us today. And I threw out some dates: Tuesday, April 14th, so that's in 2 weeks; Wednesday, June 16th; Tuesday, August 26th; and Tuesday, November 10th. And open up for any discussion and/or action to approve those dates.

Yes.

Representative Jamison.

Thank you. You, uh, you say you did throw out those dates. Were they in conjunction with other events, or was there a reason for those dates?

Yes, um, a couple of them. So I'll go first here. April 14th is a Tuesday. I'm just going to pull up my calendar. And so there's actually an event happening— I'm sorry, um, Tuesday, April 14th. I just wanted to get something started here early as possible so we can get the summer studies finalized and appointed so that there's plenty of time for those summer studies to conduct their work. We have other summer committees, as you know, interim committees, as well as elections this year. So I just want to give people enough time, as much time to work around all those schedules. The next one was in June, and I looked at an event we have that's unique this year. ALEC is hosting an event in Rapid City the 17th, 18th, and 19th. I thought, um, e-board on the 16th for those that might be wanting to come through Pierre and then head over to Rapid City, uh, that could work. And I'm looking through the— August 26th was just avoiding some of the other events that were happening in August.

Okay.

Uh, that was an open week, it looked like. There's some other events happening, um, that we've been invited to with some of the organizations. And then, November 10th, we just typically have one in November, uh, that— after the Election Day. So, that's when we normally get all of our reports. And I can just cover real briefly, so everybody knows what the summer looks like. That April meeting—

Ahem.

Again, we'd finalize interim study scopes. Make appointments. We talk about the committees that were created by the legislature. We select our issue memorandums, and we'd have an investment council hearing and the technology subcommittee if necessary. In June, we have the subcommittees of technology and budget meet if necessary. We have some e-board appointments, so we got the Uniform Law Commission. We'll talk about our Travel fund allocation, e-board evaluations, the auditor general, the LRC director. In August, those subcommittees for the investment council budget and, um, I think the technology report to us. And I think that's kind of a highlight. What'd I miss here, Director?

I think you got it all.

Okay, I think that kind of covers Broadly what we need to get done this summer, if that helps.

Thank you.

Representative Mulder.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I approve— I mean, I move that we adopt the proposed 2026 interim, uh, dates for the legislative or the e-board committee.

Okay, sorry, we have a motion. It is a Tuesday. I have a motion by Representative Mulder. It was seconded by Representative Gosch to approve April 14th, June 16th, August 26th, and November 10th as our meeting dates for the 2026 executive board. Any other discussion? Seeing none, we're just going to do a voice vote. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Those— that motion is approved. Okay, we're going to talk about Choose new seating assignments here. Oh, too soon. Okay, we're going to talk about proposed interim studies for 2026. Now first, I want to just go through and remind everybody that this year during the legislative session, we established 3 interim committees. One is the Indian Medicaid Managed Care Model Task Force. This would be DSS-administered, but we would appoint— do you have the list of members?

3 appointments.

There'd be 3 appointments to that. There's a Development Disability Service Delivery Committee. And then there's Emergency Medical Services Funding Task Force. So typically, we do 2 to 3 summer studies. And we have created and voted on 3 during this legislative session. With that into consideration, I know that there were some other ideas that were proposed by members that we have looked at and voted on even, and I'd like to open it up for some discussion. But what I'm going to propose to this group is we stick with the 3 that we have, and I'll remind everybody we do have interim committee meetings as well as other activities. Most folks have a race this year. And plus we only have— we can only ask so much of our LRC staff. So with that in consideration, I would propose we do not do any additional summer studies and we maybe look at some of the proposed ideas for issue memorandums done by the LRC. I'd open it up for some discussion. Senator Otten.

I would, I would agree with that. Um, I think anything more than, than 3 for our LRC staff is going to, uh, just really tax them. And so I would say just the 3 that we have, we have passed, and good enough.

Sure.

Thank you. Further comments? Representative Mulder.

I'd be supportive of that as well. I mean, sticking with the 3 that the legislative, uh, body has passed Plus, we have to remember the governor also has a recidivism task force that some members are on. Plus, of course, the election season and everything else that you just mentioned. It seems like we have plenty of work to discuss and move forward for next year.

Mr.

Chair?

Yes, Senator Mehlhaff. I would make a motion that we limit our interim studies, summer studies, to those that have been legislatively passed.

Second.

I have a motion by Senator Melhoff, seconded by Representative Gosh, to limit the number of summer studies to those that have already been passed by this legislature. Any further discussion? Seeing none, it's going to be a voice vote. All in favor will say aye. Opposed nay. That motion passes. Okay. Give me one second. So that's really our official business, but before we go, I want to set us up for some success at our April meeting. So that's in a couple weeks, and at that time we're going to pick our issue memorandums. So the LRC usually does 3 to 5 of these. They're great white papers, and you can look at— they provide you a list of some of the things that they've done in the last few years. I would open it up for some discussion, and I would also ask the LRC to come back with a list of maybe some proposed ideas that we'd look at before our next meeting. So a few days at least before our next meeting, LRC would provide us with a list of some of the issues that they think would be relevant. Okay, so with that though, I'd open it up for any discussion. To identify further ideas that we'd like to pursue possibly for the issue memorandums that are provided by LRC. Representative Gosch, did you have something? Anybody else? Yes, Representative Odenbach.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, I think when you look at the ones that were ranked by those who did weigh in, the school insurance costs Was number one. And I do think I've delved into that a little bit the last couple of years, talked to some smart people about the need to maybe do something proactive on that. It has become a huge issue for schools. So I do think that would be, in my opinion, one that would be good to get some— get all the facts from them. A few other states, in the little bit of research I've done, have created their own captive insurance pool to help deal with that. So if we could get the facts from our staff on just how that might work here, it could make doing a possible bill much easier. So that's my thought on that issue.

Okay, you're referring to Study N, I think. Okay, any other? Senator Deibert.

Thank you. Well, I just want to point out that if we look at the survey rankings, we really didn't have a lot of participation. It reminded me of voter turnout, but Also, it's a little skewed because some people just chose one, others thought they had to do 1 through 5, so I'm not sure that we have a real representation of what the rankings are. Not that I'm objecting to Representative Odenbach's position, but it's just that I don't think we can take this at face value because statistically it's not strong.

But are there any of these items that you would wish to put forward? For an issue memorandum?

Well, I think one that, if I may, would be on the impact of the new sales tax. I think it's Senator Holz's item on schools outside the state aid formula and the impact of the new law on sales tax on them, because there's some that will qualify and some that won't. And we're giving them huge budget cuts on their local match. That might be one that's worthwhile, but we might be able to do that very simply with statistics from it. So thank you.

Study M is what you're referring to?

Yes.

That was presented by Senator Hulse. Representative Jamison.

Thank you. Thank you. I just, you know, with all the election integrity bills that were passed and brought at least, at least through State Affairs for some of us, I was wondering if we should look further at the Or have a paper, I guess, if you will, regarding the secure absentee ballot pilot program that was— kind of got some exposure, but it was really interesting to me because it's so different. And I'm just wondering if there are trends or others around the country that are tracking along the same line. So just a thought.

So it'd be Study Q, right? Okay. I see the director making some notes here. Any other comments? Yes, Representative Healy.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I'd have to agree on school insurance costs. I know that this issue came up through the Education Committee, so I think that is a topic of conversation that we're going to have to discuss sooner or later.

Okay.

Are there any others? Okay, I don't see any other committee members. I'll ask— open up for the members of the public if they'd have anything they'd like to share. Open up for any public testimony discussing issue memorandums. Going once. Representative Rice, come on up. Thanks for being here. State your name for the record, please, and proceed.

All right. My name is Kathy Rice, District 29. I didn't get a chance to see this email, so I kind of been looking at it for the last few minutes. But I was also on the school insurance. That was a big part Part of an education. It has gone up tremendously for all our schools. And I don't know if there's any way that we can be self-insured or something, but there's like 1 or 2 insurance companies and they have a monopoly on it. So that's one thing. And then absentee ballots, I'd have to agree with that because I've had issues when I did a recount, seeing things in the absentee ballots in South Dakota. So there is a problem there. So that's what I would like to do.

Thank you for sharing.

Anybody else? Any other public testimony? Okay, seeing none, we're going to close public testimony. Last call from the committee? Okay, Director, do you have a few notes written down? Okay. And then you guys, we're going to ask LRC to look through some of the issues that came up through the last 2 years, I would probably imagine. of bill drafts and things, as well as some of these issues and what you think would be relevant as we proceed to the next session, prepare our bodies for the next session. Does that sound fair?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Do I need a motion to do that?

No.

Okay.

You've got the direction.

Yep. Okay.

Mr. Co-Chair, do you have anything else before we leave today?

No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate all your hard work so far in this interim.

My predecessor used to like to run a really fast e-board meeting. I think we did so, but very efficiently, and everybody that wanted to say something had the opportunity. So with that, I would entertain a motion. I have a motion by Senator Odenbach to adjourn. It's seconded by Senator Deibert. All in favor will say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, nay. Nay. We are adjourned.