Transcript of the Interim Rules Review Committee

This webcast is a service of SDPB. Good, useful, and full of wonder.

SDPB.

The Interim Rules Review Committee will now come to order. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Larson. Here.

Mehlhaff.

Here.

Muckey.

Here.

Howard.

Here.

Hansen.

Here.

Mr. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. We have a quorum. At this time, the chair will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our last interim rules review committee. Moved by Senator Howard, seconded by Representative Muckey. All those in favor will say aye. Those opposed, nay. Motion carries. Okay, good morning everybody. We have lots on the agenda, and so we're going to ask everybody to keep it moving along here with your testimony, with your remarks. We're going to take this agenda in the order that the items appear, and so we will begin with Senator Howard and the South Dakota Plumbing Commission.

Thank you. Okay, so first up we have a rule from the South Dakota Plumbing Commission to amend, adopt, and repeal rules to align notification requirements to the functionality of a new database, align rules with the intention of South Dakota Codified Law Chapter 36-25, to clean up language and to clarify existing rules. And we would welcome proponent testimony.

Good morning, Madam Chair, committee members, and the LRC staff. My name is Mandy Nielsen. I'm the program director for the South Dakota Plumbing Commission. On behalf of the commission, I ask you to deem the administrative rulemaking process complete for the rule changes in this packet. The need for the adoption of the proposed rules is to update notification requirements of the commission to align with the functionality of a new database. These proposed rules also provide further clarification to align rules with the intention of South Dakota Codified Law 3625 and clean up language or clarify existing rules. With the shift to a new database, rules that refer to mailing and issuance of physical documents will become obsolete. Obsolete and inapplicable. So while there will be no cost of implementation or compliance, as there are no proposed changes to fee amounts collected by the Plumbing Commission, there may be an increase in savings related to postage costs upon transfer to a new database for the commission, licensees, and plumbing installation certificate holders. So approval to proceed from Secretary Hultman was given on August 31st, 2026. The Commission provided the interested party of advance notice of the rulemaking, as well as courtesy copies to 9 others. All format and style changes suggested by the LRC were incorporated, and the Commission received no written public comment or oral comment during the public hearing, which was held on October 2nd. The Commission unanimously adopted these rules at that public hearing. So with all the previously stated criteria met, the Commission attests that the rulemaking process is complete and ready for your approval. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I would also like to thank the LRC staff for their assistance with this process. I will stand by for questions.

Thank you. Any other proponent testimony? Okay. Seeing none, any—

And none online.

Any opponent testimony? All right. Seeing none, we'll waive rebuttal. Questions from the committee? Okay. Well, I guess I do have one for Ms. Nielsen. It looks like you're going to be delegating the administration of an examination to vendors. Is there no additional cost due to that?

We are just leaving it open. Oh, Madam Chair, we are just leaving it open to the possibility right now. The commission has been looking into that, and there's been no concrete decision made at this time. But we wanted to give this as an option if we move that route.

Follow up, if I could. Yes, and I can. So, if if this had stayed within DANR, would that have been necessary? Just out of curiosity, for—

well, the Madam Chair, the, um, the only license that used to be under them was the individual and on-site small wastewater license. All the other licenses were handled by the Plumbing Commission. The Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources shifted that over to the Plumbing Commission, I think, in '21 or '22. So that's the only difference that we've had that since that time.

Thank you so much. Once again, last call, any questions from the committee? All right, I would consider a motion. Yes, Representative Hansen.

Madam Chair, I move the rules process is complete.

All right, so we have a motion by Representative Hansen, second by Representative Muckey, to rule the— deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on the rule? On the motion. Okay, Madam Secretary, will you call the roll, please?

DeGroot, excused.

Larson, aye.

Mehlhaff, aye.

Muckey, aye.

Hansen, aye.

Howard, aye.

Madam Chair, unanimous.

All right, that rule has passed, and I will pass the gavel back to Representative Hansen.

Thank you, Senator Howard. Next up is the Department of Game, Fish, and Parks with a proposal to amend rules to modify the transportation requirements for paddlefish harvested during the archery season below Gavin's Point Dam by allowing harvested paddlefish to be cleaned prior to transport. Remove the annual submission of a summary report for retail bait dealers as a requirement for license removal and specify an annual summary report needs to be submitted by wholesale and export bait dealers. Update the list of fish pathogens of regulatory concern that must be tested before the fish importation permits may be issued. Modify the list of state endangered bird species. Update the list of aquatic invasive species by adding the golden mussel to the list of aquatic invasive invertebrates recognized by the department, and establish exemptions from aquatic invasive species conveyance launching and removal requirements for specific circumstances involving aquatic conveyances. And with that, the committee will hear proponent testimony. Good morning, Mr. Kirschenmann. Welcome.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Madam Vice Chair, and members of the committee. Tom Kirschenmann, Director of the Wildlife Division, Department of Game, Fish, and Parks. Pleasure to be in front of you again as your last interim rules review meeting for the year. Congratulations through getting through another busy year of rules. So you have our list, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for reading off the list of rule package in front of you. A couple of quick comments. Number one, A lot of the items that you will see in the rules package are style and format that our staff worked in conjunction with Mr. Goetz in going over the rules package. And then secondly, I would offer up a couple of the changes are also in place to actually reduce regulatory burden on the sportsmen and women out there, retailers in particular, of what was mentioned for bait dealers. So I'm going to just hit a couple of the highlights, Mr. Chairman, if I may, and then I will certainly stand by for any questions that any of the committee members have. But looking at the list of our rules that we have in front of you, a couple that I just want to touch base on. Number one, there have been a couple of questions in respect to the endangered bird species that were modified in the state list of endangered and threatened species. We have 2 of them: the Eskimo curlew and the least tern is what we had recommended to the commission that they did pass to remove From the state endangered species list. Quickly, the reasons why we brought that forward on the Eskimo curlew: This is one that has been basically extinct for quite some time, and when you look at throughout its entire range, which includes a significant chunk of North America and beyond, there are just no simple records of it. So there is no possible means for us to do any type of conservation recovery efforts. That doesn't exist out there. So just simply due to that fact, we brought forward the recommendation to remove it from the list. I will share with you that it still remains on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's list. If they continue to retain that, I can't answer that question, but it's still under the list of the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service.

The least tern is actually the opposite. This has been a species that utilizes sandbars in particular along the Missouri River system. For its nesting habitat, our agency, like several other state agencies, have worked closely with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Corps of Engineers for probably 30 years now on conservation efforts and recovery efforts to remove that from the endangered species status. It has been very successful in protecting some of the key sandbars up and down the river system, which is their. Critical habitat for nesting in particular, for the numbers to continue to grow and expand. Back in 2021, so just 5 years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service actually removed it from the federal endangered species list and delisted them. So in our collaborative efforts with those other federal agencies, and it was on the state list as well, knowing that it was federally delisted and knowing the status of it, We recommended to our commission to remove from the state endangered list as well, and that's why it is in front of you on your rules package here today as well. Another item that I'd just like to bring up and talk briefly about: you mentioned the paddlefish and harvest below Gavin's Point. This is a situation where we have multiple paddlefish seasons, and. In the standpoint of this particular rule applies specifically to the archery take or the archery harvest of paddlefish. When we have our licenses available for archery season, we do not have a protected slot limit on paddlefish. However, during the snagging season for paddlefish below Gavin's Point, we do, and in that case, it's between 35 and 45 inches long. That there is a protected slot limit. So when you harvest an animal during the snagging season, it cannot be within that protected slot limit, and our conservation officers and our staff need to be able to distinguish the size of that fish. However, during the archery paddlefish season, there is no protected slot limit, and so there is no need to have a stipulation or requirement in place that if an angler that harvests one during the archery season. Wants to quote unquote clean their fish and then transport it so they can get it on proper ice storage as they transport it, not a concern of ours. It just needs to be in place during the snagging season so we can identify and make sure that those fish did not fall within that protected slot limit. So there's again reducing some of that burden on our anglers. And then the last one I would like to mention is the one in respect to baitfish and retailers. So in our system, we have approximately 150 retailers across the state of South Dakota that sell baitfish, i.e., your local convenience store, bait shop, those types of places where you can go in and purchase your minnows, for example, to go fishing. Those folks, for by and large the majority, other than maybe a couple of them, 2 to 4, they do not go trap and capture their own fish, nor do they sell it out of state. They are just simply that pass-through. And so we had a requirement within their permit that they too had to report to us the amount of bait that they were selling. However, all the bait that goes into every individual retailer, we already get that same information from the wholesale bait dealers that capture or take the bait to the retailers to sell. And so both of them were sending us basically the exact same information. Unnecessary burden on our retailers and part of their permit process. So we remove that piece of that reporting. They no longer have to provide us a yearly summary for the baitfish that they sell at their local facility because we get all that information from the wholesale dealers already. Redundancy not necessary. So, Mr. Chairman, those are just a couple of, I think, the major highlights from our rules package, and I will certainly stand by for any questions you may have.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Any further proponents on these proposed rules? Any further proponents? Okay, seeing none. Are there any opponents? Any opponents to these proposed rules? Okay, seeing no opponents, we'll move to questions from the committee. Are there any committee questions? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you walk us through what is the ARIN 2005 And it talks about we should have numbers for the production, the population, habitat for endangered species, I believe. Can you just walk us through that, educate us on that, and what your agency's role is when an animal is on the endangered species list?

To the chair, Mr. Kirschenmann.

Thank you, Senator Howard. So I'm going to back up just a couple steps, if I may. There is state statute that requires our agency to do a biannual review of the state listed and state threatened and endangered species. And that short list then is found within administrative rule. So what it asks us to do and requires us to do is every 2 years look at that list and determine, do we have any new information? Have we gathered any new information from doing any type of survey work that we do or monitoring? Or information that we may gather from other researchers, other states, or for example, from our federal partners that we work with. It's important to also understand that the state endangered species list is different than the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the list that they have. And I'm very happy to say, I'm proud to say that our list is substantially less than the federal endangered and threatened list. We have approximately 20 in our state between birds and invertebrates and amphibians. So what we do is we do some rotation of monitoring of some of these species, like every 2 years, every 4 years, to gather new information. We'll use that as part of our biannual review to look at the information we've had in the past, and then we can get some trend data or we can see some new changes within there. And those are the types of information that we will use then, plus gathering information from other parties to do that analysis every 2 years and then bring potential recommendations to the commission for removing or adding species. Species could be brought to our attention by somebody that has some concern or interest of a given species and going, hey, you need to look at this. Or it could be the opposite. They could bring us information, say, "Here's a project we're aware of or we were engaged with. You may want this information to make further decisions about delisting, removing, or lowering the status of those species as well." So we use a combination of data information for doing this. We establish in this overall document that we do every two years, like our recovery efforts or ongoing conservation efforts. And then those benchmarks that would say, okay, if this is happening now for species over this time frame, now we can look at the consideration of going from endangered to threatened, for example, or completely taking them off the list. So there's multiple steps that we do for monitoring survey work, working with other partners, and then doing that biannual review helps us determine and bring forward recommendations for adjustments. Additions or deletions from the list.

Follow up, Senator Howard.

Okay, so has the 2026 report been put out yet?

Yes, as we went sorry through the chair. My apologies, Senator Howard. Yes, we we did when we completed our annual review. We put out that report for the public to review and provide comments to, and then we will use that document for the next two years and. Follow some of those adjustments to monitoring, survey work, those things. And we'll have it on our website and available to people that do want to see it. But yes, we complete that every 2 years.

Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, I haven't had a chance to look at the 2026, and I know in 2024 GFP had stated it hadn't had the opportunity to get sufficient information to formulate their delisting goals and recommendations. And I'm wondering what has changed since then that you're now ready to delist the least turn, Mr. Christian.

Through the chair again, Senator Howard. The simple fact is continue looking at the survey work that we do in conjunction with the Corps and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The fact that they met the thresholds at the federal level for being delisted lends itself to the same standpoint in South Dakota. We do not have to. Retain it as a state endangered species.

Go ahead, Senator Howard.

Okay, but is it— seems looking at all the documents that were put in for this, it seems like yes, we met the requirements at the federal level, but that's like nationwide. Shouldn't we also want to meet those standards for the state? Has the bird actually recovered in our state? And what— where's the data? What have you done to Where can we find the data, the numbers to show that in South Dakota it has recovered?

Through the chair, Mr. Kirschenmann.

Senator Howard, so yes, we have we have data tables and looking at that nesting chronology and the successes of nests that we have found looking through that in that report, in that document that also talks about the recovery efforts and those thresholds in the state in conjunction with. At the federal level. The, the challenge of a species like this, it's not a resident wildlife species. It doesn't stay in South Dakota year-round. And so it's a migratory shorebird. And so part of its lifetime is spent in South Dakota. The rest of the time it's going to be in other states, even in another country. So we're a part of a bigger picture when it comes to the delisting status of this. But we do have that type of information in that document that shows goes back in several years of information. You can see how those trends continue to go up and reaching those thresholds for delisting.

Follow-up, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, so if you have done the surveys, you've done the nesting surveys and all that, then why when you submitted this on the fiscal impact, why was there no change? Why wasn't there a decrease? You know, if you're no longer having to to do the work. This bird is being delisted. Why is it— why isn't there a cost savings? And I understand if you can't get an exact amount, but just say yes, there should be a cost savings because we're taking 2 items off our endangered species list.

Through the chair, Mr. Kirschenmann.

Senator Howard, so when it comes to doing our work of monitoring those species listed on endangered and threatened status, And in this case, we will likely conduct at some levels some additional survey and monitoring to continue to monitor that. And what will also happen is through the other species, we do rotation and we will then prioritize probably some additional monitoring survey of other species. So it won't be like we're just completely dropping off and going to go switch and do other type of work. What might happen is we might reprioritize some of our staff time efforts on some of the other species through our rotation of survey and monitoring. So we're still doing the collective work, but it might be on another species as well.

Go ahead, follow up, Senator Howard.

So then what is the point of delisting it if you're still going to be doing the work? I now I'm I'm more confused by that answer because I'm like, okay, then what's the point of delisting it? Because don't we also If we have animals that are on the endangered species list, doesn't that open up your agency to more federal grant opportunities and other funding opportunities? So what's the benefit of removing this from the list if you're still going to be doing the work of monitoring it?

Through the chair.

Mr. Kirschenmann.

Senator Howard, I totally understand your question, and I could give another example. The bald eagle was on the list at one time also and is no longer On the endangered list, that is another species that from time to time we will still do monitoring to see that those trends are continuing on. It's of interest of the species. It's part of the overall management, no different than our game species, right? They're not endangered. Obviously, as game species, we do the monitoring to understand the population. So some of those efforts are still going to continue. It's just part of wildlife management and doing some of those due diligence.

Follow-up?

Further questions? Any further committee questions? Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Maybe more of a curiosity question. I know in this pack we have multiple situations of we're delisting a species, we're adding one to the invasive species list. Can you walk me through just generalities of the process of how you arrive at that? There are particular cycles, for example, of when those decisions are being made.

Mr. Commissioner.

Through the Chair, Representative Muckey, in terms of the cycle, that is all part of that 2-year biannual process that state law requires our agency to go through. And every, every time we go through that cycle, new information might come to us that comes internally through the agency or might come from outside parties, whether it's another research entity, whether it's another Fish and Wildlife Service or somebody different. When that comes forward, that starts those conversations and looking at what do we do next and determines what are our next steps. And that will start the conversation of should this species be considered to be added to it, be moved down from one status to another, or removed completely from there.

Any further questions? Any further questions? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to express some frustration over a couple of the forms that you guys submitted, the Form 5 and the Form 14. It didn't seem to me that there was an attempt to really do the due diligence on those forms to inform the people really whether— what is the cost impact. And I understand sometimes you don't know what that's going to be, but at the same time, then, you know, put that on the form. A couple of the instances. So the retail bait businesses, there are some changes as to who has to submit forms and who doesn't have to submit forms. Well, that should be a cost savings for the business that doesn't have to submit the forms. That's a change, and that should be denoted on that form. One of them is no longer going to have to test for certain pathogens. Again, that should be a cost savings. So what do you have any idea what those cost savings are? Why weren't they included on the forms?

Kind of my question, Mr. Kirschenmann.

Through the chairs, Senator Howard, I appreciate the comments, and I think that that's something obviously brought to our attention by you. We will. Work harder at that and learn from that and do better. The example of the bait dealers, those retailers that would not have to submit that report, it would be— it would be very difficult for me to give an estimate of what that financial impact would be of savings to them. What it would require or no longer require is to keep track throughout an entire year of the volume of bait that they sell. And then taking that moment to accumulate all of that and put it on a one-page form to submit to us. So I don't know that it's a huge strenuous amount of time and what that cost would be, but there would certainly be some savings of their staff resources and time not having to constantly track that and then providing that report. But so that would be an example, I guess, of that what that savings might look like. Estimated costs. I can't give you a number based on the approximately 150 across the state.

Any further questions? Any further committee questions?

Mr.

Chair.

Senator Mehlhaff.

Yeah.

This is somewhat of a follow-up to Senator Howard's question, but I'm puzzled as to why the department wasn't able just to informally resolve the issues that staff identified and instead made the decision just to push on through and leave it to us to, to overrule the opinion of our staff here in an open meeting rather than to informally work it out and bring a packet that doesn't have that conflict associated with it.

Mr. Kirschenmann.

Through the chair, Senator Mehlhaff, can I ask to restate that just so I fully understand what you're asking me?

Senator Mehlhaff.

Yes.

So there was some issues identified with the forms and an opportunity to informally resolve those disagreements. With staff, or frankly with reaching out to members of the committee, and maybe you did that, and I'm not— and I wasn't one that was reached out to, but I'm wondering why that wasn't informally resolved before bringing it in front of the Rules Committee to basically ask us to overrule our staff's recommendations. on what constitutes a completed and correct form?

Mr. Chairman, I may have to phone a friend and have our legal staff help answer that question, because I think that was a conversation between them and LRC staff.

Good morning, sir. Welcome. Please go ahead and introduce yourself, and then if you need the question repeated by by all means. Otherwise, if you— okay, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Good morning, committee members. My name is Will Penniston. I am Deputy General Counsel for Game, Fish, and Parks. To answer the community member's question, we had informal communications in between LRC and GFP in the substance of creating these rules and addressing Yes. —the issues of the forms just took place at an informal level in between departments. And so, we think we did our due diligence in trying to craft these rules and the forms to the best of our ability. At some point, informing the committee of every one of those deliberations would not be a streamlined rulemaking process. rulemaking process, but in the future, we can keep committee members more abreast of the differences going forward.

Follow-up, Senator Mellett? Any further questions? Any further committee questions? Okay. I don't see any more. Thank you, gentlemen. We'll move to committee discussion or action. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I would move that we declare the rulemaking process complete for all sections in this packet except to revert the proposed sections 41090416, 41090803.03, 41100201, and 41100401 pursuant to subdivision 5 of South Dakota Codified Law 1-26-4.7. As forms 5 and 14 related to those rules are not in proper form, as they do not meet the statutory requirements of South Dakota Codified Law 1-26-4.2 and South Dakota Codified Law 1-26-4.11.

Is there a second? Okay, that motion has been made by Senator Howard and seconded by Representative Muckey. Discussion on your motion, Senator Howard?

Well, South Dakota Codified Law 1-26-4.2 requires the fiscal note to state what effect, if any, the proposed rule will have on the revenues, expenditures, or fiscal liability of the state or its agencies, and to include an explanation of how such effect, if any, was computed. Also, South Dakota Codified Law 1-26-4.3 requires that the 4.11 requires the regulatory impact analysis to include a cost-benefit evaluation addressing several different impact issues. So this isn't a matter of whether this committee wants to do something or doesn't want to do something. This is a matter of codified law, and I do believe our staff made it clear with the agency what corrections needed to be taken to ensure these were submitted in the proper form. And I think it's a matter of transparency for the public.

Every—

we make these documents public to people so they can see what is going on, and then when we get these forms that are just repeating what basically what the rule does without giving the information it's required to give, we're doing a disservice to our constituents. So I would ask for a yes vote on this.

Okay.

Further discussion?

Mr.

Chair, Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

When I look at this conversation as far as the motion goes, I think one thing that I'm always mindful of is, you know, to the points that Mr. Kirkman made of trying to figure out how do we, how do we make sure that we're getting the information we need to look at this information and these rules packets thoroughly. One of the things I didn't know was a challenge is trying to figure out when we look at Forms 5 and The first question I have: Are the forms undue or unclear, and are we getting enough information to move forward? So largely, when I look at this, I say, you know, honestly, I'm I think to the senator's point, I don't know that we're necessarily opposed to the the form of the rules themselves. More so, do we have questions about the process of how we arrived here as far as the forms go? Like I said, I just want to make sure we advance the.

Well, I just have a comment or question maybe for anybody to comment on, on the committee, but I'm looking in particular at the delisting, and I'm looking at the form. This is Form 5, and it seems like there's a reasonable justification at least for that one, and it seems to me, although I don't know all the ins and outs, but it seems to me like they're basically just following the federal law. And so, you know, I'm not sure that there's a lot of cost impact on that. And so in particular, I'm wondering why we're not approving that piece in particular within this motion. And so maybe somebody wants to comment on that. Senator Howard?

Sure.

Thank you. Because I do believe they did not do a good enough job in explaining why if we are removing a species from the federal endangered species list, say that there's no cost savings or, you know, any assumption— they say any assumption of such impact would be purely speculative. Okay, that's fine, but they don't do a good enough job of explaining the fiscal impact. I just— yeah, maybe staff can go a little bit more into this. I just would agree that that one overall, the form was not done to the transparency standards that we should have for our people. And surely if there is— you're removing 2 species from the threatened and endangered species list, that is going to change your actions as an agency. And what impact is that going to have on your agency?

Okay. Any other questions, comments? Senator Larson, go ahead.

Just a clarifying question about the impacts of this particular motion. Should this motion go through of partial approval of the rule— of the process being complete, what is then required of GFP in terms of further efforts to get this rule package across?

Well, you would have a couple of options ordinarily, particularly if we had another meeting scheduled, and I suppose we could always do that. But this is our last meeting. So when we revert a rule to a prior step, the agency does typically have the opportunity to go address whatever our problem was with that and then bring it back to the subsequent hearing of the Rules Review Committee without having to go through all the steps of another public hearing. You know, on their own. That really wouldn't be an option in this case since we're not meeting again, or at least we don't plan to. And so their option then moving forward would be to have another hearing on their own and then bring this back to the following interim. So they would have to wait until after this legislative session for another meeting of this committee in order to adopt these rules with our change— with With having, you know, done another Form 5 and another Form— what is it, 15? 14.

Yeah.

Does that answer your question? Senator Larson?

Mostly.

So you're saying they would not have to go back and do any of the original work again? They would only have to do Form 5 and 14 and then come back to us at the next meeting, which is not until the next interim?

Well, I would— no, I think because we're not having another meeting this interim, I think, you know, if I were advising them, what they would need to do is have another meeting on their own, publicly noticed, like they do before they ever get to this meeting. They would need to do that again before they came back with these, these rules. So that would kick them into next year. Before they could do that, Senator Howard.

Would it be possible to have a remote meeting in November?

Yeah, I'm open to that. So I think that's not a problem. We've done it before, and so if if this is what we're going to do, I think if this motion prevails, I think it would. I would prefer to. Have a remote meeting and give them the option of doing these forms and then coming back. You know, I think that would be a reasonable course of action.

Probably clarify question.

Yeah, go ahead.

Can we make a substitute motion with that addendum to it?

Well, I suppose. I mean, you could have another. Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Goetz.

Mr. Chairman Justin Goetz, Code Council. You know. The nature of the motion that you can make right now, you do have some flexibility, obviously. But I do want to note that in the past, and this is maybe a year, two years removed, it has been the position of this body that you know coming back that next month to have a meeting requires there to be some amendment of the rule language itself. And if you are dealing with just the forms. And revising the forms without any change in rule language, there could be the argument that SDCL 1-26-4.10 doesn't apply. That's been the position of this committee in the past with regard to a GF&P reversion. So I just wanted to make the committee aware of that and if that might change any perspectives on a course of action.

Yeah, I mean, the statute is if the interim rules review committee reverts a rule to consider amendments to a proposed rule. Yeah, I mean, I guess the statute does say proposed rule. The agency may make the amendment and resubmit the rule as amended. So, yeah, the statute, to Mr. Goetz's point, seems to contemplate Reversions to the rule to consider amendments to the proposed rule. So you would have to interpret that as also meaning amendments to the Form 14 and the Form 5. Senator Larson.

Clarifying question. Well, I'm following you. I'm in a position where I do feel that said the senator's comments about the Form 5 and 14 are accurate. However, I do not think that they're an infraction, like, you know, deep enough to make them go through a significant amount of work. It seems like something that they could do quickly. So I'm in a position where I would support the sort of more low-effort fix than the longer-term kicking this into next year when the IRRC will have totally different members. Thank you. And just the resources that that would take from our taxpayers to do that. That's why I'm seeking clarity, and I still don't really—I still don't really understand if we can meet in November or not. I'm thinking that's a no.

Well, no, we definitely can have another meeting. The question is, under the statute, can you consider amendments to the form—the forms? And you know, I think it's very arguable that when you can when you think about rules proposals, you think about the text of the rules proposal, but also the forms that accompany them. I don't I don't really think that that's a violation of the law in that respect. And so my position would be that if we decided to pass this motion, that we would then be able to have a meeting in November. And consider amendments to those forms and then adopt those rules. Representative Muckey.

Thank you. Just maybe a question for Code Council timing-wise. We should be able to— if we were to go down this path of approving this particular motion, GF&P would be able to bring back that in November, correct? Timely fashion.

Mr. Chairman, Justin Goetz, Code Council. The executive board meeting that ends the interim and at which a final report is provided of the committee's activities is November 10th. Generally speaking, it's ideal to have a meeting before then and then fully report it to the executive board. It is not unheard of, however, for a meeting to be scheduled ad hoc after that final review meeting. That has happened once in my time here. So, I mean—

Thank you.

Logistically, you know, it puts us closer to session where we're reviewing bill drafts. It is an additional burden on staff, but we absolutely can make it happen.

Okay. So I don't know if it requires an amendment to the motion. I'll just say as chair, if this prevails, and I'm looking at GFP, but if this prevails, I would like to notice up another meeting in November to be able to consider amendments to those forms so that you can get these rules adopted. Okay. So any further comments on the motion? Is everyone clear on the motion? Okay. Okay. Seeing no further comments, the motion before the committee is Senator Howard's motion. That we declare the rulemaking process complete for all sections in this packet, except to revert the proposed sections 41090416, 41090803.03, 41100201, and 41100401 pursuant to subdivision five of SDCL 1-26-4.7. As forms five and fourteen related to those rules are not proper in proper form as they do not meet the statutory requirements of STACL 1-26-4.2 and 1-26-4.11. All those in favor of that motion will vote aye. Those opposed, nay. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot, excused. Larson, aye. Mehlhaff, aye. Muckey, aye.

Howard, aye.

Hansen, aye.

Mr.

Chair, unanimous.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. That motion carries. Rules process is complete except for those Rules that were mentioned, and the chair will notice up a meeting for November to take up the amendments to those forms so we can get those rules adopted. Okay, next up on our agenda is the South Dakota Department of Transportation to amend rules to change the speed limits on U.S. Highway 83 near Oneida in Sully County, South Dakota Highway 248. in and around Kadoka in Jackson County, update highway references and eliminate speed limit provisions that are no longer needed because of highway jurisdictional transfers, and change when the terms business and person are used in rules pertaining to contractor prequalification to submit bids for highway construction projects. Committee will now hear proponent testimony. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Karla Engle, and I'm Chief Legal Counsel for the South Dakota Department of Transportation. The South Dakota Transportation Commission approved amendments to Administrative Rules 70-01-0239, which is Jackson County speed zone rule; 70-01-0259, a Sully County speed zone rule; 70-07-0101, which is definitions relating to prequalification of contractors; 70-07-0409, which discusses reasons for debarment; Of a contractor, 70.0704.10.02, which relates to hearing requests relating to debarment, and 70.0704.15, which discusses terms of debarment. The procedural steps that have been taken so far are as follows. Secretary Jundt approved proceeding with rulemaking on August 7th, 2026.

Thank you.

The public hearing was on September 22nd. The proposed rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and BFM on August 19th. Publication occurred in newspapers the Rapid City Journal, the Pierre Capital Journal, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, and the Oneida Watchman on August 20th. On August 14th, copies of the hearing notice and proposed rule were emailed or mailed To the individuals or entities who've requested notification of rulemaking, on August 18, not July 29th as stated in the form. I apologize for that error. On August 18, information about this rulemaking was posted on DOT's website and on the OpenSD website. On August 24, September 8, and September 14, information about the hearing was posted. On DOT's social media platforms of Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram. On August 14th, copies of the hearing notice and proposed rules were mailed to the mayors and finance officers of Sioux Falls, Kadoka, and Oneida, and the sheriffs of Jackson, Sully, and Minnehaha Counties. The final rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and the committee on September 24th. I'll now discuss the purpose and effect of the rule changes. The proposed speed zone rule amendments will change speed limits on U.S. Highway 83 near Oneida in Sully County and on South Dakota Highway 248 in and around Kadoka in Jackson County. The proposed speed zone rule changes will also update highway references and eliminate speed limit provisions that are no longer needed because of highway jurisdictional transfers. The reasons for the proposed speed zone rule amendments are to enhance safety, add clarity, and repeal speed limits for highways that are not under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation. In Jackson County, the speed limit through Kadoka on Highway 248 is currently 45 miles per hour from the west city limits to the east city limits. The proposed rule would create a 1.2-mile segment of highway 248 in Kadoka that would now have a 30-mile-per-hour speed limit. This change was initiated by the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, the Department of Transportation, and its Pure Region Traffic Office. A speed study found the average speed was 40 miles per hour. The 85th percentile speed was 45 miles per hour. But when the surrounding context was considered, The speed limit setting tool and the department's traffic engineering staff recommended a 30-mile-per-hour speed limit. This lowered speed limit is more appropriate through town because there is a high frequency of businesses and residential and school approaches and a very high pedestrian presence. In fact, the department is currently working with the city of Kadoka on either a pedestrian pathway Or a lighting project, or both in this segment. The department is also proposing speed limit changes in Sully County on US Highway 83 near Oneida. The department proposes to add a 55-mile-per-hour transition speed limit on a 0.6-mile segment of US Highway 83 that is currently 65 miles per hour. The speed limit change has been spurred by developments south of Oneida, including an ethanol plant that is served by turn lanes on Highway 83. The ethanol plant has caused an increase in truck traffic due to limited sight distance for northbound vehicles approaching these turn lanes. A lowered speed limit is prudent. The Sully County Sheriff's Office supports this change. The remaining changes in the speed limit rule reflect the repeal of speed limits for highways that are no longer under the jurisdiction of the department. The department is also proposing amendments to administrative rules relating to contractor prequalification to submit bids for highway construction projects. There are 2 elements that the department considers when awarding construction contractor bids. One is the responsibility of the bidder, and the second is the responsiveness of the bids to the documents that we've posted for the bid. And the prequalification process, that's how we determine whether or not a contractor is qualified and responsible to submit bids. And we make those determinations before a contractor can even submit a bid into our system. And so we've made amendments to those administrative rules. The purpose of the proposed amendments is to clarify when the rules apply to a natural person and when they apply to a business entity or both. In the new subsection 1, you'll notice the definition of business includes both a person and a business entity formed to perform work as a contractor or subcontractor. The reference to natural person was unnecessary. Because the term person is already defined as a natural person. The definition of construction contract was simplified at LRC's suggestion. The department's specification book, which is incorporated into every bid letting and every construction contract, defines what is included in the contract, so it wasn't necessary to include that laundry list. In these rules. The definition of contractor is unchanged, and it refers to a business awarded a construction contract. And under the definition of business, that may include both a natural person and a business entity. The definition of prospective bidder referred to a person, but it should be broader to also refer to a business, which includes both a natural person and a business entity. In other words, the definition of contractor and prospective bidder, they didn't match up. So the definition of prospective bidder has been changed to coincide with the definition of contractor. In 7007.0409, reasons for debarment by affiliation, subsection 1 has been changed to preclude a debarred or suspended person in addition to the principal in a debarred or suspended business, which is already in the rule. So a suspended or debarred person, natural person, would also be precluded from being employed in a decision-making capacity for a business performing work as a DOT contractor. In subsection 2, we've also changed that rule to include both a suspended and debarred person And in subsection 3, that would preclude a debarred or suspended person from holding a significant financial interest in a business where they have authority over the activities of the business performing work for the department. As to the hearing request section, that should refer to a business because we only prequalify businesses, which can include both a natural person and a business entity. And we made the same change in the term of debarment rule. No timely public comments were received on the proposed rule changes. No one appeared at the hearing to testify in support of or in opposition to the proposed changes. Most of Legislative Research Council's changes to the proposed rules were incorporated into the rules before you, but we discovered there were some changes that were unintentionally overlooked. These were non-substantive changes, and we did reach out to LRC, and those changes will be incorporated into the final rule filed with the Secretary of State if the committee approves the rule changes today. As always, LRC's careful and thoughtful review is greatly appreciated. I would ask you to find that the rules process is complete. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any further proponents? Seeing none, are there any opponents? Are there any opponents? Okay. Seeing no opponents, are there any questions from the committee? Any committee questions? Seeing none, move to committee discussion or action. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would deem the rulemaking Second.

Motion made by Senator Howard, seconded by Senator Larson, that the process is complete. Any discussion on that motion? Any discussion? Seeing none, then the motion before the committee is that the rules process is complete. All those in favor vote aye. Those opposed, nay. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Excused.

Larson.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Chairman, unanimous.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. That motion carries. The rules process is complete. Thank you. Chair will pass the gavel to Senator Larson.

Thank you very much. Moving on to the rules packet of the South Dakota Athletic Commission. This is from the Department of Labor and Regulation. This is a rule package to amend and adopt the rules to clarify requirements for events and competitors, application and medical requirements for contestants, officials required for events, bout contract provisions, commission disciplinary actions, and updates consistent with the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts and Boxing. And 2, Provide for the inclusion of inspectors as officials for events and set forth in State Bill Senate Bill 64. Excuse me. Set set the requirements for inspectors assigned by the commission and establish the parameters and requirements for about review by the commission. And with that, I would like to hear proponent testimony. Please introduce yourself and thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, my name is Jennifer Staley, and I serve as the executive. I'm here today on behalf of the Athletic Commission to ask you to deem the rules process complete with regard to the proposed amendments to rules in Article 2081. The purpose of these proposed rules is to fully implement Senate Bill 64, which was approved in the most recent legislative session. Senate Bill 64 clarified the commission's rulemaking authority to allow the commission to update these administrative rules to reflect the commission's current operating policies and procedures for overseeing competitions and the participants in boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts contests. These rules reflect a comprehensive update to the article to provide clarity and transparency for the applicants, licensees, and registrants of their qualifications expectations, and their roles and responsibilities in each of the roles of these competitions. The rules update the framework for safety at the competitions and regulate the contests for fairness. The rules also create a process for reviewing the outcome of a bout to ensure the accuracy of results, as was provided in Senate Bill 64. Specific to the requirements of the rulemaking process, the commission received approval to proceed with the rulemaking process for Secretary Haltman on August 7th, 2006. Initial documents to begin the process were filed with the Legislative Research Council and Bureau of Finance and Management on July 8th, 2026, and July 9th, 2026. Notice of hearing of the proposed rules was made in 3 newspapers: the Aberdeen News, the Black Hills Pioneer, Dakota Scout, all on July 17th, 2026. Notice of the public hearing on the proposed rules was also made By the commission, by way of notifying all of the promoters and officials who had been registered or licensed by the commission in the previous 36 months by email, publication of that notice of hearing in the South Dakota Register. And I would just note that the commission has been discussing these rule changes since January of 2024. So this has been an ongoing effort for a comprehensive update, and that discussion has taken place at every commission hearing since 2024. So there's been significant public outreach on the proposed rules. A public hearing on the proposed rules was held on August 7th, 2026. In advance of the hearing, the commission received comments from Mr. Evangelo Giovanni of 15th Round Promotions, which is a boxing gym in Sioux Falls. Mr. Giovanni requested the commission consider reducing the minimum age for a professional boxing contestant from 18 years of age. Current rule requires 18 years. The commission considered the comments at public hearing, but did not accept that recommendation due to a state law that sets the minimum age for professional boxers at 18 years of age. And that law is actually found in SDCL 2610-2.1, which is not within the Athletic Commission statutes. It's within a section of code that protects minors. There are also federal restrictions on professional boxing for minors that weighed in on the commission not taking that recommendation. The commission's comment and action related to the recommended change and their declining of that recommendation are reflected on page 1 of the public hearing minutes in your packet, which is Form 10. The commission made all required style, form, and legality recommendations of Code Council's review of the proposal. Proposed rules. I personally worked with Code Council to address these recommendations. Appreciate his time and effort. I'm very certain that Code Council knows more about mouthpieces, hand wraps, and the requirements of cages than he probably ever thought that he would. But I can confirm that I believe we've met all of those recommendations from LRC's perspective in the final rules package before you. I would note that one of the recommendations that came from That came from Code Counsel was identifying that the commission did not have authority to be charging a fee for the amateur exemption for boxing organizations. And accordingly, in addition to the original rules that the commission had, the first package of rules that the commission had considered, they did go on to strike that fee, which is $100 biannually for an amateur organization to be exempted from our rules. The Commission acknowledges an additional recommendation from Code Council to consider future refinements to this article that would allow for the creation of additional subsections so that a number of longer sections might be broken out into individual sections. The Commission also acknowledges a recommendation of Code Council to continue to refine sections related to the specific roles in these competitions through a possible reorganization of the article. However, the specific reorganization of this article was not possible in this rules package due to the limitation of rule numbers that had been noticed in the public hearing. The commission understands from Code Council that this is not requiring a reorganization at this time to allow the commission the opportunity to further consider this recommendation to reorganize the article with future updates. This additional time is appreciated by the Commission. The Commission served the Legislative Research Council with the required materials incorporated by reference on September 30th, 2026, to address the final item identified by the letter to the Commission from LRC. On October 6th, the Commission served this committee with the packet that you have before you. The proposed rules before you are admittedly voluminous. As I said, this was part of a comprehensive revision of our rules to reflect current policies, procedures, and safeties for these events. The committee was provided with a rule-by-rule summary of the proposed rules, and in the interest of time, I will not review each rule. I will tell you that the effect of these rules will be to update and clarify current rules to reflect the commission's current policies, including safety requirements for events and competitors, application and medical requirements for contestants, the officials required for each event, bout contract provisions, and commission disciplinary and administrative actions following a bout; to update the competition rules to be consistent with the unified rules of mixed martial arts and boxing; to provide for the inclusion of inspectors as officials for events as set forth in Senate Bill 64; and to set the requirements for those inspectors assigned by the commission. And again, to establish the parameters and requirements for about review by the commission. The reason for adopting the proposed rules is to implement Senate Bill 64, update the rules to reflect the current policies and processes of the commission for the safety of the contestants, officials, and the public, and to provide clarification and transparency on the current rules for contestants, officials, and promoters. If the committee has specific questions about a specific Rule, I'd be happy to answer that. Again, the Commission would like to extend its thanks to Justin Goetz and his team for his assistance in reviewing the rules for legality, clarity, formatting, and the final presentation. His time and attention to detail is always appreciated, and his willingness to engage in conversations throughout this process are especially appreciated given the amount of changes that he had recommended. So on behalf of the Commission, I would ask for. your favorable consideration of this rules package and that you would deem these rules complete. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Dahle. Do we have any further proponent testimony? Any further proponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll open it up to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponent testimony? Opponent testimony? Seeing none, we don't have any need for a rebuttal, so we'll close the public testimony and open up for committee discussion and/or questions. Any questions? Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious, you know, when you come up with these regulations, do you work with the national organizations? I mean, are you talking to like some national boxing organization or the UFC to come up with these requirements so that if they want to come to South Dakota that we're not going beyond what they would otherwise require? How do you develop all of these?

Madam Chair, Representative, the South Dakota Athletic Commission is a member of the Association of Boxing Commissions, which includes both boxing and mixed Martial arts gets a little tricky in all of this. They have a set of unified rules. The preference of promoters is that states use those unified rules so that they understand the expectations for the contest as far as the rules of competing. With regard to the rules that we have about bout contract deadlines and space around the fighting area, any of those things, those are honestly recommendations that come through the promoters. They're things that we are doing right now for the most part, but they're things that we didn't have codified, if you will, in our original administrative rules when these events started taking place. So there are things that we've learned from the promoters of how to operate these events safely, but also in a way that is consistent with what they see in other states so that they can plan accordingly.

Great, thank you.

Any further questions?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will say I was shocked and maybe saddened by the amount of regulations regarding this subject, but I'm sure most of it is necessary, maybe. I don't know. But I have a question regarding— so you're changing the time from 48 hours to 7 days for a promoter to notify the Commission of change or substitutions.

Why—

that's a huge change. I mean, I'm just wondering why that's necessary.

Madam Chair?

Go ahead.

Senator Howard, part of that is a consumer protection issue, is so that someone who's purchased what can be a fairly expensive ticket expecting to see 2 competitors compete are made aware of the fact that those 2 competitors are not competing. We haven't had I don't have specific issues with that necessarily, but that is what we see to be the industry standard. Again, it's not that the event can't take place. It's not that the ticket won't continue to be sold, but if you went to see a fighter and you get there and that fighter has been scratched off the card for a period of time, from the consumer's perspective, that doesn't go over very well.

Follow-up?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is there any recourse if I mean, okay, 7 days though. I mean, what if one of the fighters comes down with the flu 3 days beforehand? Is there any recourse for— are there any exceptions?

Madam Chair, so the rule that we put in place is that the promoter needs to notify the Commission if they are going to make a change to the card within 7 days. It is not improbable that we get to the weigh-in for one of these events and a fighter is declared medically not cleared to compete. So I would tell you that the card is constantly fluid. The 7 days is aimed at being our best opportunity to give people who might be traveling to the event fair warning that they know someone's not going to be at the— on the event. I certainly appreciate your comment about the length of the regulations, Representative Howard. I would tell you that if I could very respectfully, I don't think there's a lot of other events that you do regulate where the The outcome of it not being properly regulated could be death or severe injury. And so, the medical requirements are fairly stringent. They're consistent with other states, but those medical requirements also could see us pull someone from the card at the weigh-in, which is usually 24 hours before the event. So, it is a fluid card up until the last minute in some instances.

Thank you.

Follow-up?

Any further questions?

Madam Chair, thank you. So as I was reading through the rules, I'm more of a boxing fan than mixed martial arts, but I was surprised to see that a mixed martial arts fight has to be at least 20 rounds. I don't know if I remember back in— I think it was in the '80s, fighter was killed after a 15-round fight, and the Boxing Association limited championship fights to 12 rounds. So I was wondering if there's an explanation how— why we consider that safe to have a 20-round minimum on a mixed martial arts fight.

Madam Chair, Senator, I think you might be looking at the rule that sets the minimum number of rounds that have to be in a contest. So a bout would not be 20 rounds. The contest must be 20 rounds. Meaning you have to have, depending on how many bouts you put for, or how many rounds you put for a bout, those bout rounds have to add up to 20. And part of that is so that the commission is not being called out to oversee one bout. It's, you know, we have limited resources. We have limited So, I think you're referring to the rule that sets the minimum number of rounds in a total contest, not the minimum of rounds for one fighter to compete against another.

Okay.

Because you are correct that it's— 12 is a championship round in boxing. What we normally see in South Dakota is 6 or 4 rounds. In mixed martial arts, you either have 3 rounds or 5 rounds.

Okay.

In an individual fight, in an individual contest. vote between 2 people.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Any follow-up? Any further questions from the committee? Seeing none, we'll move on to discussion and/or action.

Madam Chair?

Yes.

I move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

Second.

Okay.

Let's see. We have a motion from Muckey, seconded by Mehlhaff. And I would ask the secretary to call the roll.

DeGroot.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Madam Chair, unanimous.

Okay.

Now we're moving back to— from the Department of Labor and Regulations. We will be looking at a packet to amend the rules and revise the life expectancy Tables for the purpose of calculating compensation lump sum payments under the ARSD 47-03-0107. Do we have any proponent testimony for that?

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Jerry McCabe. I am the Director of the Division of Labor and Management with the South Dakota Department of Labor and Regulation. I'm here today to request that you deem the administrative rulemaking process complete for the changes to the workers' compensation rules. The effect of the rules will be to revise the life expectancy table for the purpose of calculating compensation lump sum payments under the rule that was cited by the Chair. The reason for adopting the new life expectancy table is to ensure those calculations are based on current data. The life expectancy table was last adjusted in the year 2000. The rules changes received no opposition during the rules process. The proposal was brought to the Workers' Compensation Advisory Council and they approved us to move forward with rulemaking. I appreciate your consideration of this matter and I'll stand by for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Do we have any questions? Or actually, sorry, we move on to opponent testimony. Any opponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll move on to committee questions.

Muckey.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Quick question, just to understand for myself, what is the underlying source material for the life expectancy estimates?

Mr. McCabe.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I—

it's a great question. I can get you that information. I don't have it off the top of my head. It is one of the federal agencies that calculates life expectancies. I just can't remember which one off the top of my head.

Any further questions? Seeing none, we'll move on to discussion and/or action.

Yes.

This process is complete.

All right, we have a motion from Hansen, seconded by Howard. And could the secretary call the roll?

DeGroot.

Aye.

My apologies, that was out of order. Is there any comments on the motion?

I just want to thank the agency. You revised this and gave me an additional 1.8 years of expected life. So thank you.

Now the secretary may call the roll. DeGroot, still an aye?

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

I may have to reconsider after. I'll vote aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Madam Chair, unanimous.

Thank you. Moving on to the Department of Labor and Regulation. This is to adopt rules to establish the State Apprenticeship Agency, the SAA. Specifically, the rules define administrative duties, registration procedures, program standards, review requirements, actions involving apprenticeship programs, reciprocity processes, and complaint procedures, and align South Dakota with federal— the federal apprenticeship requirements under 29 CFR Part 29, allowing for the SAA to administer, register, oversee, and enforce registered apprenticeship programs Required requirements at the state level. Do we have proponent testimony? Thank you, ma'am. Please introduce yourself.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Tara Bartakowski, and I'm the apprenticeship program manager within the Department of Labor and Regulation. And on behalf of the department, I ask you to. Deem this administrative rulemaking process complete for the proposed rules in this packet. These rules establish Article 4709, which implements Senate Bill 63 and the outline— and outlines the framework for the State Office of Apprenticeship within the Department of Labor. Finalizing these rules is a critical step for South Dakota to secure official recognition from U.S. Department of Labor. Bringing regulatory oversight home from the federal government to the state level. Throughout the rulemaking process, the department worked closely with both U.S. Department of Labor and the Legislative Research Council— thank you, Justin, for all your help— to ensure complete regulatory compliance and statutory alignment within the proposed package. After the package was submitted, there were a few corrections that LRC did suggest that we make. There was 3 technical corrections that were updated and posted on the website. The department received no written comments. We did hold a public hearing on September 24th where there was 1 proponent who testified in support. We provided verbal clarifications on the record regarding the standard occupational definitions, procedural timelines, and reciprocal approvals to align with statutory and federal baselines. No changes were made to the proposed rule text as a result of that hearing. These rules carry no new fees or costs to South Dakota businesses or our state general fund. So on behalf of the department, we ask that the committee approve these rules today to allow us to move forward with that formal recognition process. Thank you. I'll stand by for any questions.

Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponent testimony? Moving on to opponent testimony. Seeing none, moving on to committee discussion and our questions. Representative Senator Howard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I think I'm finding it. You state in here that you're going to use a portion of future fund grant monies for this, $830-some thousand. Is that how you Do you intend to fund this ongoing, or is that just for the initial year, or do you plan to come to appropriations and ask for a direct ongoing appropriation? Just curious about that. Madam Chair?

Please go ahead.

Sorry. Thank you. To initiate and operate the state apprenticeship agency, we will use some federal workforce federal workforce grants and the agreement with the Governor's Office of Economic Development. Future plans is to continue to use those federal workforce grants, and no plans that I'm aware of to come to the legislature or to request general funds, but any funding in the future beyond what we currently have would be based on evaluations, measurable outcomes, and would go through that regular process.

Thank you.

Follow-up?

Any further questions from the committee? Seeing none, we'll move on to discussion and/or action.

Madam Chair, I would move that we deem the rulemaking process complete.

Okay. Moved by Mehlhaff, seconded by Muckey to deem the rulemaking process complete. Are there any comments? On the motion, seeing no comments, we will have the secretary call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Madam Chair, unanimous.

Passing the gavel back to Speaker Hansen. Senator Mehlhaff, my bad.

Thank you, Senator Larson. At this time, we'll move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the South Dakota Commission on Gaming, Department of Revenue, and this rules package to amend a rule to modify the existing structure and include alternate pay tables for the 21+3 game, a blackjack variation of play. Do we have any proponent testimony? Welcome, Mr. Abraham. Please introduce yourself and go.

Mr. Chair, committee members, Doug Abraham. I am counsel for the South Dakota Commission on Gaming. Very kind of light packet from us. Involves modifications to existing variation of play for for blackjack. You've seen these fairly regularly from industry. This was an industry-proposed rule. Through that system, it just modifies our existing rules for— we already have this variation of play at blackjack. It involves— it's 21 plus 3, but involves the side bet, the extra bet that you see on a blackjack table, and has pay tables based on the number of decks you have and whether it's a progressive variation or not. But essentially, it deals with your player's first 2 cards plus the dealer's up card. And if you get one of the hands of poker based on what the pay tables are, you would get then that enhancement to your bet. This just modifies our existing rules, really struck the existing rules, replaced them with a clarified version that takes into account the progressive pay tables and the modified pay tables that we have included. So we do have industry— or we do have interest in the industry where this particular modification, or I should say variation of play, has been utilized. We don't know the extent that that will continue to be utilized, but this just allows another variation of play. Our vendor, Gaming Labs International, has previously reviewed this particular variation of play They verify that the progressives and the pay tables are accurate, and that occurred prior to the initial version that was approved by the Commission and Interim Rules Review. So this just modifies that, includes some new pay tables, otherwise not a lot of real significant changes.

Thank you, Mr. Abraham. Is there any other proponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll Go to opponent testimony, and seeing none of that, we'll go to committee questions. Does anybody have questions for Mr. Abraham? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Just curious, how long have we actually been regulating games like this, such as this? Just out of curiosity, if you can give a brief history of.

Sure, Mr.

Chair.

Senator Howard, so we have been regulating these games since the changes to South Dakota Constitution that allowed for gaming in Deadwood. Variations of play, you can see 21 plus 3 is variation 30.03, but if you look at the variations of play for blackjack or poker, now we have, we're well down in in the double digits for different variations of play. So, if you walk into— it's kind of interesting. If you walk into your average casino, you really have to pay attention to what's on the felt for variations, particularly if you look at blackjack, for example. Now, the base level for blackjack is generally very, very similar. Usually, there's no modification to the underlying game, but the enhancements, the progressives, Almost every table has something different, and so the idea is to continue to for casinos to be able to mix up games that are on their on their floor and allow for a little modification of that spur additional interest. I'm not sure that that necessarily happens or not. It's difficult to determine that, and you could see for rule or form five and form fourteen filings. We don't take into account individual tables and what they produce for handle. We do have table game handle that we track versus slots. You know, slots a huge percentage of that. The vast majority, over 90% on an ongoing basis, is always slot machines. So these table games actually a very small percentage of handle that it goes through Deadwood. But the idea is that this this brings and spurs a little additional.

Any further questions? Seeing none, we'll close questions, go to committee discussion and/or action. Representative Muckey.

I move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

Second.

We have a motion by Representative Muckey, second by Senator Howard to deem the process complete. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I'll ask the secretary to please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Having received a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. We'll move on to the next item, which is Department of Revenue to adopt rules to establish application requirements for nicotine product licensees, inspection procedures, recordkeeping requirements for licensees, violation procedures, and product disposal or return requirements for retail licensees. We'll open up to proponent testimony. Welcome. Please introduce yourself and proceed.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Thank you. My name is Jason Evans. I'm with the South Dakota Department of Revenue. And Mr. Chair, you mentioned it. This section of rules or package of rules is in the areas of applications, returning or disposing of product, assessing and collecting fines, recordkeeping, and inspections. You guys may recall that during the last legislative session, Senate Bill 221 was introduced and passed, and that is now codified at SDCL Chapter 10-50E. Section 16 of that bill required us to promulgate rules in those areas mentioned, and this rules package is intended to meet the minimum requirements under that section. So I'll give just a— I know that you've got a busy day and you're, you know, in a hurry for time, but I'll give just kind of a high-level overview of some of the rules. Obviously, the first one is simply definitions. The second one is application requirements. I just wanted to touch on that. That's essentially copied and pasted from our sales tax applications with a couple of exceptions, one being sub 7 there where we have to ask for an estimated annual gross income from the sale of nicotine products. You might recall there was a tiered license fee with that bill, and so we need to determine what the fee is going to be. And then sub 8 there is required to determine eligibility. Certain people aren't eligible for a license, and so rather than ask for or make applicants go through the process or burden of a fingerprint background check, we're just asking them to affirm on the application that they meet those requirements.

I never thought of it, but it makes absolutely no sense. Representative DeGroot, are you muted or was that a proponent comment? That was— I was off mute.

Now I will mute my mic.

Thank you. Because it sounded a little bit more like opponent testimony.

Mr. Chair, I'll move forward here. Rules number 3 and number 4, there was a requirement in the bill that said if your license is revoked, you're required to either dispose of the product or return the product to the wholesaler from which you bought it from. So we're just specifying here how they evidence to the department which method they chose in rules 3 and 4. Rule number 5, we're talking about our violations procedures and how we're going to notify them of their various penalties that they have for violations, and obviously some due process information in there as well. Rule number 6, recordkeeping requirements. A lot of this is addressed in the, in the actual statute, but we are saying that they've consented to our inspectors viewing those documents and records necessary to implement the provisions of Chapter 10-50E. And then same with the inspection procedures, that We may show up announced or unannounced, and because part of the regulation is age verification stuff, we may use somebody who is underage to help accomplish that. So that's kind of a high-level overview of the rules. I won't go through the timeline of everything. You can see that on Form 15 in your packet. I will mention that we got no public comments during our public hearing, when we held that in our office building. We did, however, receive 3 written comments subsequent to the public hearing. One was in full support of the rules and the program in general. The other one was, you know, multiple pages— maybe you saw it— 13 or so pages with 160 questions, looking largely at statutory interpretation. It really had very little, if anything, to do with this particular packet of rules that you have in front of you, and one was seeking minor changes to both the rules and the statutes. Ultimately, any changes that we made to our initial proposed rules and the adopted rules that you have before you today were to address the form and style and legality questions from LRC. And so I would simply ask that you deem the process complete, and thank you for your time. I'll stand by for questions.

Thank you, Mr. Evans. Is there any further proponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll move to opponent testimony. Is there any opponent testimony online or in the room? Seeing none, I know that we all received written testimony, and I'm assuming everybody's had a chance to look that over. So at this time, we will close opponent testimony.

Thank you.

And move to committee questions. Is there any questions for Mr. Evans? Seeing none, we will close questions and move to committee discussion and/or action. Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

We have a motion by Representative Muckey, seconded by Senator Howard, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Are there any comments on the motion?

I do.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

First, I want to thank the department for putting this together. I know this is a substantial piece of work. I also know it's important for South Dakotans to hear and understand that this This particular set of rules packets, particularly when it comes to our retailers selling vapes, is part of a large effort by the legislature to be able to not just regulate and be able to make sure that the product being sold is safe, but also take a real stand to say, as we're looking at nicotine products and cigarettes in general, that we have a coexisting set of rules and regulations for those. So I appreciate the work of the department and thank them for their time.

Any further comments on the motion? Seeing none, we have motion by Representative Muckey, second by Senator Howard to deem complete. I'd ask the secretary to please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Muckey. Aye. Howard. Aye. Hansen.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Mr.

Chair, unanimous.

Having received a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. And at this time, we will move on to the next item up for business, which is again Department of Revenue to repeal, amend, and adopt rules to establish procedures for permanent closure of a motor vehicle dealer. Establish certain required uses of the department's 605 drive system. Permit retention of electronic records. Require retention of certain paper records for at least a year. Require document fees to be advertised for customers in accordance with federal law. Prohibit the use of broker and wholesale. In dealer names and advertising materials and to provide form and style adjustments. Do we have any proponents for this rules package? Good morning. Welcome. Please introduce yourself and proceed.

Good morning. My name is Rosa Yaeger, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I'm the Director of the Motor Vehicle Division today—

or, right, last Hopefully at the end of today too.

But I'm here in support of this rule package. In the package you have Form 15, which goes through the process that the department went through to get these ready for you. For the sake of time, I'm not going to go through all of those forms with you, but if you have questions, I can try to answer those for you. That was probably the longest title I've ever had for rules, and it was pretty descriptive. So that is a lot of what this package is doing, you really have us trying to tighten up the closing process for our dealers that are permanently closing, making sure that we are taking care of their inventory and getting back any of the plates they may have. And then the other portion of the rules really deal with cleanup, making sure things are worded properly. If they have copies of their files, making sure that they are keeping those physically for 12 months and then electronically for up to 5 years. I can go through these rule by rule if you would like me to, but given that you have the package in front of you, like I said, this is mostly cleanup, dealing with the— making sure the dealers are closing up their licenses properly and that we get our rules, our records kept The only other thing that was in there that is a little bit different is they are required to use 605 Drive to print their dealer sold permits now. If for some reason that system is down, they do have emergency orange permits that they can use, but they still have to go enter that sale after 5 days. That's really the only change for them. With that, I would ask that you deem the rules process complete, and I will stand Thank you, Ms.

Yeager. Is there any other proponent testimony on this package? Seeing none, we'll go to opponent testimony. Is there any opponent testimony? Seeing none, we will now move to committee questions. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In your—

Ms. Yaeger, in your rule, your Form 14, You referenced some of this is required due to federal laws. Can you just expound on that a little?

Some of the pricing guides that the federal government has come up with in the— they've had rules that have changed. One of my staff was actually at a training with them this past 2 weeks ago, and really the rule is if that's what the person's going to have to pay for that vehicle when they walk out of their shop, That's the price that needs to be listed on there. And so before, they wouldn't include dock fees and things like that in their prices. They need to put that in their listed price now.

Any other questions on this rules package? Seeing none, we'll move to committee discussion and/or action. Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we deem the rulemaking process Complete.

Have a motion by Representative Muckey, second by Speaker Hansen to deem the process complete. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I'll ask the secretary to please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Having received a unanimous vote, the process is deemed complete. So at this time, we'll move on to our next item, which is South Dakota Lottery Commission, Department of Revenue. It's to amend rules to provide the executive director the authority to suspend Revoke or deny video lottery licenses. Clarify a minimum test period for new video lottery game software. Permit online training and testing for video lottery technicians. Eliminate logbook requirements. Clarify that ticket voucher credits must be redeemed by the close of the business day. And permit the sale of video lottery machines between operators. So at this time we'll open up to proponent testimony. And Mr. Lingle, welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Norm Lingle, Executive Director for the South Dakota Lottery. I first want to start with referencing the letter that was included in the packet from Clark Hepper, who's our deputy executive director at the lottery, and basically just kind of summarize that we respectfully request that the committee consider the proposed rules without the inclusion of 48-020401 and 48-020403. The lottery and the commission Need to look at this and discuss this a little bit further. We didn't have time to do that prior to submitting the packet, and I have spoken with each of the commissioners by telephone individually, and they understand and agree with with what. We're requesting. So with that, I'll just start and kind of speak to some of the rules that we're proposing amendments to. And the first one is on page 6, 4802.0514, sub-15. This is under the category of duties of licensees. Operators. Our licensed operators are the folks that own the VLTs. And so the first one is to remove the words good taste when we talk about advertising from the operator standpoint. Decency, dignity, and honesty are all Words that are definable. Good taste is more subjective, so we're requesting to remove those words. 48-02-05-04 Sub 21: This would allow a licensed VLT operator to sell a VLT to another licensed operator in South Dakota. It has to be an approved VLT. Currently, there's no mechanism for them to sell directly. They have to work it through a distributor to do that. And so for simplicity reasons and efficiency reasons, we're proposing to allow an operator to sell a VLT to another operator. On page 8, 48020704, this restates the length of the beta test, or what we call it beta test. It's really the field trial. So as we go through the testing and approval process of a VLT, we work with a company called Gaming Labs International. They do testing. We do testing in-house. This is kind of the final test before it's approved for sale and placement within South Dakota. Currently, the rule allows for a maximum of 60 days. We're proposing to change that to a minimum of 21 days. The real purpose behind that is that Weekends, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays are typically our high play days with VLTs, and we want to make sure that we capture at least 2 weekends in the testing process before we give it the final approval. The next one on page 9, that is form and style. Page 10. We're proposing to change or add the word alpha. We think that alpha is is a better word than than word, I guess, or written a better word than written for inclusion on the cash out tickets. Page eleven is a form and style. Okay, page 13, 4802.10.03. When a new VLT is part of the approval process for a new VLT to be placed in an establishment, an operator, a licensed operator, needs to have technicians that are trained on that VLT. Currently, rule only allows for in-person testing or training to occur by the manufacturer. Of course, with advancements in technology, online training, online meetings have become more prevalent. We've had some requests from some of our manufacturers to move towards this. And so basically this doesn't eliminate— if a manufacturer wants to have an in-person in South Dakota training, they can certainly do it, but also broadens it to allow for online training as well. Page 14, 480210.01. 04 just makes clear that the lottery can administer a test for a Tech 1 or a Tech 2 for testing. There's occasions— it doesn't happen very often, but there's occasions where techs will want to bypass the training and go right to the testing and certification part of it. And so this makes clear that we can administer those tests. All right, page 15, 4802.1007. We're proposing to eliminate this rule. Logbooks have been in place since the very beginning. I think with advancements of technology and with the central system that we use to control the VLTs out in the field, we capture the events, we capture the meters, And so this, we're proposing to eliminate that a logbook be included within each particular VLT because our central system is capturing all that information. Page 16, 4802.1202, one of the things that we're trying to do here is to clarify By including the words business day. All right, so if you look at where VLTs are located, they're located where they sell alcohol. Alcohol spills over midnight into the next calendar day till 2 a.m. We do get questions at times where. A ticket voucher may be printed, say, at 11:30 p.m., but they don't go to redeem that voucher till after midnight and it claims. And so we're trying to clarify and say it's the business day and it's the business day of that location where the VLT is is located. And then I think finally here, page 17, 4802.1203, we're striking the wording regarding the claiming of the ticket voucher because we're including it in the rule that I just spoke to. So with that, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I would ask you for your support for the proposed rules and will stand by for any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Lingle. Is there any other further proponent testimony on this particular rules package? Seeing none, we'll move to opponent testimony. Seeing no opponents, we'll move to committee questions. Does anybody have any questions of Mr. Lingle? Seeing none, move to committee Discussion and/or action. Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that Sections 4802.401 and 4802.403 be reverted to an earlier step in the rulemaking process pursuant to South Dakota Codified Law 126-4.7, Subdivision 2, to accomplish the intent of the commission and their staff requesting the sections be reverted and approve and deem the rulemaking process complete for the rest.

So we have a motion from Representative Muckey to revert those 2 rules as he described to a previous step and to approve and deem the remainder of the packet process complete. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, okay, so we have the motion by Representative Muckey, seconded by Thank you, Representative Muckey. Any other comments? Speaker Hansen, did you want to make a comment? Oh, you want to make a comment?

Very briefly, if I could.

Oh yeah, certainly.

Thank you for bringing this forward to us and appreciate the clarity.

Good comment. So we will move back to action. So we have a motion by Representative Muckey, second by Speaker Hansen. To revert those two rules to a previous step and to approve the rest and deem them complete. So, Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Mr.

Chair, unanimous.

Having received a unanimous vote, the motion is passed. The process is complete with the exceptionals too. So we will move on to the next item on our agenda, which is South Dakota Division of Insurance, Department of Labor and Regulation, and it is to adopt a rule to define the word resident for an individual producer, business entity, or applicant, amend a rule and repeal Appendix A to update and incorporate by reference the most recent edition of guidelines pertaining to coverage for preventative items and services, and to amend a rule to include the best interest standards for broker-dealers. Do we have proponent testimony? I see we do. Ms. Harmon, welcome. Please introduce yourself and proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. My name is Lisa Harmon, and I am here on behalf of the Department of Labor and Regulation Division of Insurance, to present the rules packet before you today. I will go through our timeline and process before talking about the rules. So the approval to proceed was signed by Secretary Hultman on August 21st. The proposed rule was submitted to LRC and BFM on August 26th. The notice of public hearing was published in the Aberdeen News on August 28th. The Huron Plainsman, Dakota Scout, and Rapid City Journal on August 29th. We sent the notice of public hearing and the proposed rule via three email listservs on August 31st to approximately 142,700 recipients. We also posted the notice and the rules on the division's website and on the rules. SD.gov site. The public hearing was held on September 21st, where one member of the public attended. During the 10-day comment period post-hearing, the division received one comment letter. The division submitted this packet to LRC and the committee on October 7th. So the packet before you contains generally areas: a resident definition, preventive service guideline updates, and a best interest standard for broker-dealers. I will start with the resident definition on page 3 of the final rules. The Division is adopting Section 2006.18.23, which provides a definition for resident applicant producers, also known as agents, who are seeking to be licensed in our state. Currently, there is no definition who is a resident for purposes of licensure, and the division has recently run into some issues. In 2026, the division revoked the licenses of at least 75 individuals who claimed to be residents of our state, but in fact, the majority of those individuals were not located within our state. All of these actions are available on our website. By passing this rule, the division will have a clear standard for who is a resident in our state for purposes of licensure, and we will ensure consumers who are interacting with these producers claiming to be a resident in this state are actually residents of South Dakota. Switching gears to the preventive service guidelines updates, these are on Page 4 through 16 of the final rule. So the division is amending Section 2006.5401 and repealing Appendix A. The division is repealing Appendix A because we want to fully incorporate by reference the preventive service guidelines of the United States Preventive Service Task Force, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resource and Services Administration. By updating this section, the division will ensure everyone is referring to the most recent edition of these guidelines, and more importantly, consumers will be receiving these preventive services at no cost share, so like your deductible, coinsurance, that sort of thing. Finally, the best interest standard for broker-dealers is on page 17 to the end of the final rule. The division is amending this section to include include the best interest standard for broker-dealers as it relates to the recommendation and sales of securities in South Dakota. Today, broker-dealers are required to follow 2 separate standards. There is the federal standard and the South Dakota standard. The division wants to ensure that broker-dealers are held to the best interest standards when recommending or selling securities in this state, so the changes made in Section 20.08.03.06 mirror and incorporate the current federal standards, this is going to make it easier for our broker-dealers. As I mentioned earlier, and as you will see in the minutes, the Division had one member of the public who attended the hearing who asked questions, and the Division responded to their questions. The member of the public stated an individual they represent did not feel that adopting Section 2008-0306, the broker-dealer standards, was not an undue burden. The Division also— excuse me, yeah, it was not an undue burden. The Division also received one comment letter during the 10-day comment period. It also related to the 2008-0306 rule. The Division did remove subsection 1 of 2008-0306, given the concerns of the commenter. And then we also re-lettered those subsections. Lastly, I do want to mention the division did work with LRC, specifically Code Council, to accept form and style changes. And we do always appreciate working with Code Council. With that, I will thank you for your time today and ask you to deem the rules process complete. Thank you, Ms.

Harmon. Is there any further proponent testimony on this package? Seeing none, we will ask if there's any opponent testimony. Seeing none, we'll move to questions. Don't go away, Ms. Harmon, I have a question. Does anybody else have questions before I ask?

I have a question.

Thank you. Well, my question is, you mentioned that there was 70 producers that were— had their license revoked. I was wondering what the impact of that was, if any, on policyholders in the state.

Mr.

Chair, thank you for the question. To my understanding, there weren't any impacts. It was people that were caught by our licensing system with like a similar address. If that addresses your question.

So for clarification, those those producers didn't have any customers; they didn't sell any policies in the state prior to having their credentials revoked.

To my knowledge, in the cases that I handled, they had not had any sales.

Thank you. Is there any other questions from the?

Committee?

Seeing none, we will move to discussion and/or action on the packet. Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

We have a motion from Representative Muckey, seconded by Senator Howard, to deem the process complete. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I'll ask the Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot?

Aye.

Larson?

Aye.

Muckey?

Aye. Howard?

Aye.

Hansen?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Mr. Chair, you now—

Having received a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. We will move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the South Dakota South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to repeal outdated, redundant, or preempted rules or portions of rules and unnecessary telecommunications filing requirements, and amend rules to clarify the process for filing of confidential information, update language in the general rules and gas and electric rules to clarify simplify the requirements and update complaint process requirements, clarify the procedure for release of a grain buyer bond and to require the provision of necessary information on voluntary credit sale contracts for grain transactions, to update telecommunications provisions to align with current needs and technology, and to update a pipeline safety notification requirement to ensure necessary information is provided to the commission. With that, we'll open it up to proponent testimony. Welcome, Commissioner Nelson.

Please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chris Nelson, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission. I want to make note Kristen Edwards, our commission counsel, is sitting off to the side. She did an immense amount. Amount of work to pull this package together, and when your questions get too deep, she's going to come running to bail me out. This really is, as Mr. Chairman has described, kind of a wholesale review of our set of statutes or set of rules and making changes based on suggestions that have been given to us from the people and utilities that work with us. We received specific letters of support for these rules from the South Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have comments from the South Dakota Agribusiness Association, South Dakota Electric Utility Companies, and Lumen, formerly known as CenturyLink. There were no opposing comments to any of these rules. Because of the size of this rulemaking, in the packet that we sent to you, you noted that on each of the rules we had an explanatory box that told exactly why we were doing each of these rules, and because of that, I'm not going to go through each one of them individually. For you here today and regurgitate that. I'm only going to point out one rule that is maybe just an example of what comes through our normal course of doing our business, and that's going to be on page 16, ARSD 20:10:01:41.01, again page 16. And this deals with the confidential information that we deal with as we work through dockets. And we had a situation where one party in a docket provided confidential information to another party. That happens. That's fine. And then this other party decided they wanted to file that publicly. Well, wait a minute. That information should not have been. And so this gives us a very clear procedure for reviewing that, determining should it be public, should it be confidential under the statute. And so that's just a great example of one of the changes that we're going to make. So I'd simply like to say at this point, thank you all for reviewing this. Thank LRC for a lot of work that they did in going through and cleaning these up. I want to thank the South Dakota Telecommunications Association that brought us a lot of good suggestions for this in this lengthy update. With that, I'd be happy to answer questions when appropriate, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Commissioner Nelson. Is there any further proponent testimony? On this packet. We have a taker. First one of the day. Welcome, Ms. Semmler.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee.

My name is Kara Semmler. I'm the executive director and general counsel of the South Dakota Telecommunications Association. Just want to express our appreciation for the partnership with the South Dakota Public Utility Commission and support the rules as they pertain to telecommunications that have been presented today.

And I'm glad to answer any questions if you have any.

Thank you, Ms. Selmore. Is there any further proponent testimony on the proposed rules package? Seeing none, we'll move to opponent testimony. Is there any opponent testimony on the package? Seeing none, we'll move to committee questions. Seeing no questions, we will then move to committee discussion and/or action. Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

We have a motion from Representative Muckey, a second I have a motion from Senator Larson to deem the packet complete. Is there any discussion on the motion?

Very briefly, if I may. I know the lack of questions might suggest that we are not questioning anything in this so much as to say thank you for all the hard work. I know this is very thorough and just want to again express my thank you to the work. So I know this takes a lot of time.

Any other discussion? Seeing none, we have a motion by Representative Muckey, seconded by Senator Larson, to deem the package complete. I ask the secretary to please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye. Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Having received a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is hereby deemed complete. And at this time, after a lengthy stint with the gavel, I will pass it off to Representative Muckey.

Thank you, Senator. We will move on to our next packet. Department of Human Services amend rules to standardize and clarify critical incident reporting requirements, make restoration plans dependent on ISP progress rather than timeline Allow providers an additional month to file cost reports and audits. Standardize insurance requirements. Provide a standardized format to assist in participant safety monitoring data analysis. Update the Choices waiver services to match the federally approved waiver and avoid conflict and redundancy with federal requirements while requiring opportunity for discussion of all medications with clients at the South Dakota Developmental Center. Welcome. You may begin your proponent testimony.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, members of the committee.

My name is Jenna Howell. I am General Counsel for the Department of Human Services. And again, thank you for your summary introduction because that pretty much describes our entire packet. Form 15 lays out all of the relevant dates for publication and services required by the rules and statute.

We—

and I wanted to just basically lay out that all of our summary explanations are found in that form. Do want to thank LRC and co-counsel for working with us to address all of the concerns. Per the minutes, we only had questions during the public hearing, and then we received 2 written comments. Again, our explanation and understanding of those are in Form 15, but I believe Mr. Cross is here today to speak to them directly. Just to summarize our rules packet, the intent is to improve things for individuals who receive our services and for the providers who are critical to providing those direct services. So the restoration plans, the medication rule change for participants at SDDC, monitoring participant safety are geared particularly toward participants. And then for providers, our rules standardizing insurance, allowing more time to file audits, standardizing reporting requirements are aimed to assist our very valuable stakeholders. And then, of course, the Choices Rule just provides clarity and ends the confusion between what was amended in the Choices Waiver federally to the rules package. So with those very brief introductory comments, I would ask that you find the rules process complete, and I will stand by for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any further proponent testimony? Do we have one online?

Yes, can you guys all hear me?

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Cross. You can go proceed with your testimony.

Okay, excellent.

Thank you.

Uh, well, uh, good morning everybody, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Dan Cross and I represent Community Support Providers of South Dakota. Um, we are the association of providers that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which these rules do apply to. Uh, Community Support Providers of South Dakota fully support the proposed ARSD rules package. The changes reflect a thoughtful and balanced approach that reduces administrative burden while preserving the safeguards, accountability, and person-centered practices that are essential to quality services. The revisions improve clarity, modernize outdated requirements, and create greater consistency for providers, participants, and the state oversight. Overall, this rules package will help strengthen South Dakota's developmental disability service system, and I respectfully urge adoption of these rules.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to committee questions. Any questions from the committee? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was hoping the agency could address the concern that I I believe it was Mr. Cross that brought up, whereas it seems possibly that the agency is requiring more than federal standards as far as restoration plans go. It seems as though we're requiring that restoration plans have plans to restore each restricted right, even if that's not realistic or directly attainable, and it seems like the federal requirement simply requires that you continue to assess and justify, document, and have meaningful reviews, et cetera. So are we going above and beyond federal requirements, and if so, why?

Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Thank you for the question, Senator Howard. So in a nutshell, where we are right now is our rule still have to comply with our approved Choices Waiver, which has the outline of how we do restoration rights restrictions, restorations in South Dakota. To go farther than what we are doing in this current rule, we will have to look at amending the Choices Waiver, is my understanding from talking with the division, which is obviously a lengthy process. So what we did is we did this rule to remove time-limited, because that is not required. And right now under this rule, it would be like you have to set a time limit for this rights restriction, which is not appropriate and it is not person-centered because some individuals will do better with a consistent rights restriction perhaps for years and years. So we wanted to make that change and start improving the process and then we will continue to look at it as we look both at the federal regulations as as well as our already approved waiver.

Follow-up?

Thank you, and thank you for that. Are you looking at redoing the Choices waiver, or, I mean, is that too long of a process? You know, just have you considered that, or?

Mr. Chair, thank you. So you can amend a waiver. It is a lengthy process, but Waivers have to be renewed every 5 years, and we are coming up on the choices renewal, which will be due and must be completed, I believe, in 2028. So that process is not terribly far away.

Follow-up?

Okay.

So I just want to confirm that when that comes up for renewal, you will consider adjusting this part, correct?

Yes, Senator. That's correct.

Any further questions from the committee? Seeing no further questions, we'll move on to committee discussion and/or action. Senator Howard?

I would deem the rulemaking process complete.

We have a motion by Senator Howard, seconded by Representative Hansen, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any discussion on the motion?

I just— I thank the agency for bringing these forward. I appreciate that they will look at that when the Choices waiver comes up for review. I appreciate all these organizations that are providing these critical services for these individuals in our state.

Thank you.

Any further discussion from the committee? Seeing no further discussion, the motion before the committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Howard?

Aye.

Hansen?

Aye.

Muckey?

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Unanimous vote. The rulemaking process is deemed complete. Moving on to our next packet, Department of Health, amend rules to update and clarify the Department of Health's waiver application requirements, including definitions, documentation order acceptance procedures, and fee processing. To ensure submissions meet U.S. Department of State standards. Whenever you're ready, please introduce yourself and proceed with proponent testimony.

All right.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, LRC staff, and those listening in. My name is Marty Link. I'm a Deputy Division Director for the Division of Health Care Access in the Department of Health. Apologize for my voice here, a little scratchy. I'm here today representing or presenting Administrative Rules 43 or 44 4463 relative to the J-1 visa program. For those of you who may not be familiar with this, the J-1 visa program is essentially a physician recruitment program designed to help South Dakota communities bring international medical graduates who are in the United States on J-1 visas who want to remain in-country to practice medicine. A physician who comes to the U.S. on a J-1 visa for graduate medical education normally has a 2-year home country resident requirement after completing training. The J-1 visa waiver removes that requirement, allowing them— that physician to stay in the United States and work. The proposed rule package is being presented at the request of the United States Department of State to establish a revised order in which the documents are submitted. A little bit about the rules process. I'll just begin by talking through where we are, how we got to this day. So as a result of the request to the United States Department of State, Division of Healthcare Access took the appropriate steps to amend the order of documents submitted and to provide style, form, and clarity changes to the administrative rules. And those are specific to 4463.0101, 4463.0201, 4463-0202, 4463-0301, 4463-0302. One more. 4463-0501. Sorry about that. On August 3rd of this year, we received formal approval from the Secretary to help move forward on the rules process. August 12th, LRC and BFM were served the rules, proposed rules and supporting documentation, and the notice of proposed rules were published on rules.sd.gov. This notice was also sent out to 11 interested parties representing various healthcare organizations and associations. On the 18th of August, public hearing notice was published in Aberdeen American News, Brookings Register, and Rapid City Journal. Public hearing was held September 9th, and we allowed public— the process allowed public comments through September 19th. One submission was noted in support of the rules process by Avera Health. Avera provided support on the proposed amendment to ARSD 4463 governing the J-1 visa program, citing improved alignment with federal requirements and incorporation of recommendations to clarify full-time employment standards and shift-based physician and modernization of the administrative rule process. AVERA further notes these changes provided needed workforce flexibility while maintaining federal compliance and supporting South Dakota's healthcare workforce and patient care needs. On October 1st, the final rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and the committee. Mr. Chair, in closing, I want to share that you and members of the committee, there is no fiscal impact as a result of this proposed rule change. And I thank you for your time and consideration. In this manner, I'll stand by for questions.

Thank you. Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponents? Seeing none, move on to committee questions. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just curious, how many do we currently have in the state, individuals that have the J-1 visas?

Great question, Mr.

Chair.

Senator Howard, so current stats right now, since the program Inception, there was 300 folks that have J-1 visas. In 2027 program year started October of '26, we've— 10 have been received thus far. So if you want like a 5-year, in 2023, 17 individuals participated. In 2024, 14. '25, 24. And then '26, 24. So there's been a relatively positive response to these J-1 visas.

Follow-up?

Once they apply for the visa, is that just indefinitely?

3-year commitment on those to work in the community.

Yep.

Follow-up?

Just maybe a side question. Do you know— I mean, are we doing anything to increase the number of fellowships that we have in the state? I believe overall we're way short on the number of medical school slots that we have across the nation. We're short on fellowships, residency slots. I mean, literally, we could have people graduating from medical school that do not have a residency slot open for them. So are we doing anything to address those issues in the state? It's kind of a side issue, but—

Yeah, it's a great question. Maybe one of those so we can get back, Mr. Chair, to the committee. That might be another step above me to be able to address those, but we can adequately prepare that for you.

Any further committee questions? Seeing none, move on to committee discussion and/or action. Senator Howard.

I would move we deem the rulemaking process complete.

A motion from Senator Howard, seconded by Senator Larson, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on the motion? Senator Larson.

Appreciate the proponent testimony. This is a great program to bring qualified folks into rural areas, and it's a great opportunity overall. And I'm glad for the existence of it and the active management through it— of it through these rules. Thank you.

Thanks, Senator. Any further discussion? Seeing none, the motion before the committee is to move the Move to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen. Aye. Muckey.

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Unanimous vote. The rulemaking process is deemed complete. Move on to our next rules packet. Department of Health amend rules to update and clarify requirements through Article 4490 to align with current medical cannabis industry standards, improve consistency, and modernize administrative processes. Proponent testimony, you may begin. Introduce yourself.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Madam Vice Chair, and members of the committee. My name is Whitney Brunner. I'm the administrator for the Office of Medical Cannabis within the Department of Health. There are also other representatives from this office here today, as well as the department. We are here today to share changes to the administrative rules for Article 4490, which is the section of rules specific to medical cannabis. The proposed rules will streamline and modernize the Department of Health's processes by clarifying procedures, updating terminology, and removing outdated requirements. These changes will create more efficient workflows, strengthen regulatory clarity, and reduce administrative burden. The effect of the rules is to update and clarify requirements throughout Article 4490 to align with the current medical cannabis industry standards, improve consistency, and modernize administrative processes. The reason for the proposed rules is primarily to ensure the regulations reflect current industry practices, eliminate contradictions, correct errors, and address operational issues identified by both the medical cannabis industry and the Department of Health. The procedure was as follows. This package really started about a year ago. On October 15th, 2025, the department hosted a meeting with industry stakeholders to review the entirety of Article 4490 to identify any areas that needed updating. On August 19th, 2026, we received approval to proceed from the Secretary of the Department of Health. On August 21st, 2026, the Legislative Research Council and Bureau of Finance and Management were served the proposed rules and supporting documentation. The proposed rules and supporting documents were also posted on the rules.sd.gov website. On August 24th, 2026, a notice of public hearing and the draft rules were sent to industry. Stakeholders via email and the registration portal. On August 25th, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Brookings Register. On August 27th, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Aberdeen News and the Rapid City Journal. On September 2nd, 2026, the notice and proposed rules were emailed to 11 interested parties, including the South Dakota Healthcare Systems, South Dakota Healthcare Association, and the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations. On September 23rd, 2026, a public hearing was held, and attendees included 22 industry stakeholders as well as representatives from the Department of Health. The department also received 15 written public comments through October 3rd, 2026, as outlined within Form 10 of the rules forms. The majority of the comments centered around 4 of the proposed rules. The department took those comments into consideration and made revisions to those rules accordingly. In total, 6 rules were revised in response to public comment, as indicated in Form 10. The department also took LRC's style and form recommendations into consideration, and those recommendations were accepted throughout the proposed rules. Based on LRC revisions and public comments, The department decided not to proceed with one rule, which was pulled from the package, ARSD 4490-0215. Additionally, the department decided not to proceed with 4490-0316 as we evaluate proposed legislation in that area. On October 7th, 2026, the final rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and the committee. Mr. Chair, our goal with the revisions is to update and clarify the requirements throughout Article 4490 to reflect current industry practices, eliminate contradictions, correct errors, and address operational issues identified by the medical cannabis industry and the Department of Health. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I will stand by for questions.

Thank you. Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, Are there any—

sorry.

Go ahead and introduce yourself.

Thank you, Representative Muckey. I'm Mitch Richter. I represent Genesis Farms. We really want to thank the department for doing the work on this. They did bring the stakeholders in, accepted most of our suggestions, made some serious rewrites to what they had proposed. Under Ms. Brunner's leadership, the department seems to be on much more solid ground at this point, willing to work with industry to the point that, you know, she mentioned doing away with some outdated regulations and things that, as the industry grows and flourishes, the operating procedures need to change, and they're willing to adapt the rules to that. We really appreciate that opportunity, and they're working to bring us in in the future, and we really appreciate that. So we support the rule changes.

Thank you very much. Any further proponents? Looks like we've got one more here. Go ahead and introduce yourself when you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Tara Larson, registered lobbyist for CIASD. We, too, stand in support of these rules. There were some significant issues at the beginning. We worked with the department to fix those. We want to thank the department for their work on that, and overall, we support this package.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponents in the room or online? I believe there is testimony that was submitted to the committee for your distribution as well for reference. Seeing no further opponents, we'll move on to committee questions. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Why did you just automatically point to me like you just knew? Yes, I do have several questions. Okay. So looking through here, it almost seems to me, and I, you know, tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems like we're relaxing a lot of our standards. The first one is on the reporting requirements on sampling protocols. We're changing that from quarterly to annually. So what's the reasoning behind that?

Mr.

Chair?

Go ahead. Thank you for that question, and that's a great question. So the audit sample or the sample audits that are performed by the lab, the current rules have them doing that quarterly. And what we have found is happening is the establishments are aware that they're coming. They know what's happening. And what's happening is when the lab arrives, everybody's following procedures. Everything is good. They're not finding anything from these audits. So they haven't been productive in determining whether there are any issues with sample collecting. So alternatively, what we are doing is the lab will reach out to any establishments that they're finding are repeatedly submitting samples incorrectly and will work with those establishments directly. We did leave an annual requirement to go in that they will still do one annual sweep around with all of the establishments, but otherwise, instead of going quarterly as mandated in rule, they will just work with each establishment directly as they see issues arise.

Follow-up?

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Another one on 4490.0704. You're doubling the maximum concentration of THC per serving for certain edible cannabis products. I'm just wondering why on that as well.

Yes, Mr.

Chair?

Go ahead.

Yes, and that's another great question. So this rule change was actually just put into effect because the 50 milligrams listed in 0704 was contradicting the 100 milligrams that was already in 4490.10.03. So we just made those 2 numbers match.

But why not go with the lower number then? Why not change the other?

Mr.

Chair?

Go ahead. The industry did advise us 100 milligrams is the industry standard. That is something that we had reviewed by a third-party Consultant, Cannabis Public Policy Consulting, and they did agree with that revision, that that is more industry standard.

Okay. Another one. It seems you're relaxing the Category 4 and Category 5 violations, the penalties. I'm wondering why on that. That's within 4490.12.11.

Yes, Mr.

Chair.

Go ahead.

Thank you for the question there as well. Yes, so fines were just introduced about a year ago. They are separated into 5 tiers or 5 categories. Category 1 is the most severe offenses. So this is your selling to a non-cardholder. It's selling inhalables to a minor. Those more serious offenses. And as we go down through the categories and we get to Category 4 and 5, these are your fairly I'm going to say not as not so much a threat to public health and safety issues. These are you have an employee that didn't put their badge on this morning. They didn't tell us they updated their operating hours, so our inspector didn't know what time to show up. These are the more minor offenses, and because we do have to go through an administrative process to issue fines, we are finding that we're it would probably just be more efficient for all. of us if we went with a corrective action plan first, which is basically they have to tell us how are we going to fix this in the future and maintain compliance. And then if it happens again, at that point we will fine the second time and beyond.

Any further committee questions?

Mr.

Chair, I have a follow-up to Senator Howard's first question about the annual inspection, are those random or are they scheduled?

Mr. Chair, I would probably have to defer to the laboratory. I'm not sure if they do them randomly or scheduled.

Thank you. Is there anybody from the laboratory here?

Thanks for coming up to answer the question. Go ahead and identify yourself.

Adria Johnson, Kansas KinLab.

We do have to schedule them.

It takes roughly 80 hours to hit every entity.

To do this, so.

So they're scheduled?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. And the and the quarterly ones were also scheduled?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Any further questions, Senator Howard?

Stay there. Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Just to follow up on that, why do they have to be scheduled? It does seem like you know yeah it just it seems to me like they should be unscheduled. Well, we need everybody to be there that is certified because we put them through quite a bit of classes— sorry—

to—

in order to be a sample collector.

And so that means we need them all there. And we run like a skeleton crew at the laboratory. So if I have to go out, I need to be able to schedule Any further committee questions?

Okay.

I think we're okay there.

Any—

again, last call. Any committee questions before we move on? All right. Seeing none, we'll move on to committee discussion and/or action.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chair, Senator Mehlhaff, I would move that we deem the rulemaking process complete.

We have a motion from Senator Mehlhaff, seconded by Representative Hansen, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on the motion? Seeing no comments, the motion before the committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot?

Aye.

Larson?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Howard?

Aye.

Hansen?

Aye. Muckey?

Aye.

Mr.

Chair, unanimous.

With a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. Moving on to the next packet, Department of Health, amend a rule to add Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I'm not going to be able to pronounce the next 2. Type 1, type 2 tests for South Dakota's newborn screening panel. I'll have you pronounce them for us at the podium, but go ahead and begin your proponent testimony.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Caitlin Strasser. I work for the Department of Health. I'm the Deputy Division Director for the Division of Family and Community Health. We're the state's newborn Screening Program resides. I'm here to provide testimony in support of adding 3 conditions to South Dakota's newborn screening panel: Duchenne muscular dystrophy, or as I will refer to it, DMD, and mucopolysaccharidosis type 1 and mucopolysaccharidosis type 2. I'll refer to the latter 2 as MPS 1 and MPS 2 moving forward. These additions represent an important step in protecting the health and long-term outcomes of newborns in our state. Newborn screening exists for a single critical purpose: to identify serious conditions as early as possible before symptoms appear so that babies have the best chance at healthy development. Early detection changes the entire trajectory of care. It allows families and providers to intervene at the most effective point, often preventing irreversible harm. DMD MPS I and MPS II each align squarely with that mission. These conditions are serious, progressive disorders that cause significant health impacts if not identified early, making timely diagnosis essential. All 3 conditions have been reviewed and recommended for screening nationally through the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel, also called the RUSP, the Federal List of Expert-Endorsed Conditions. Today's proposal aligns South Dakota with that evidence-based guidance, and these rules would be added to Administrative Rules 44-19-0104 if approved. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is one of the most common childhood muscular dystrophies. It is a serious progressive disorder that affects muscle, heart, and respiratory function. Without newborn screening, families typically do not receive a diagnosis until around age 4 or 5, long after muscle damage has already begun. Early identification allows timely evaluation, coordinated care, and access to treatments that can slow disease progression and support their long-term health. MPS I and MPS II are lysosomal storage disorders that affect multiple organ systems. Severity varies, but both can lead to profound physical, cognitive, and medical complications when not detected early. In both cases effective treatments exist when the condition is identified promptly. Newborn screening ensures timely evaluation, coordinated care, and access to therapies at the most impactful stage of life. For DMD, review began with the Newborn Screening Subcommittee in September 2025 before moving to the Advisory Committee in November 2025. For MPS I and MPS II, subcommittee review occurred in April 2026 An advisory committee consideration took place in May 2026. Both committees, made up of healthcare representatives, genetic experts, clinical specialists, and public health professionals, examined the evidence, discussed implementation logistics, and unanimously supported adding DMD, MPS I, and MPS II to the panel. Interested parties for all conditions were notified on September 2nd via email. We have received approval to proceed with the newborn screening additions from the Secretary of Health on May 6th, 2026. On August 25th, the proposed rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and the Bureau of Finance and Management. LRC recommended some clarifying changes and minor style and format updates, all of which were adopted. By September 3rd, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Aberdeen Insider. Burkings Register, and the Rapid City Journal. A public hearing was held on September 23rd, and written comments were accepted until October 3rd. No oral testimony was provided, and no written comments were received. No amendments or arguments were proposed, and this rule change was not prompted by legislation. Instead, it resulted from nomination, discussion, and recommendation by the Newborn Screening Nomination Committee and the Newborn Screening Advisory Committee. The final rules and supporting documents for this proposed rule were submitted to LRC and the committee on October 7th, 2026. Our newborn screening follow-up team, along with our partners who conduct metabolic screening, are prepared to implement these additions. The infrastructure for case management, follow-up coordination, and reporting is well established, ensuring that families receive timely care and guidance. It is important to emphasize that. This rule change does not create new procedures for birthing hospitals. All babies in South Dakota already receive a blood spot screening shortly after birth. These additions simply expand the list of conditions analyzed at the lab, at the lab from the same sample. Hospitals will continue using their current workflow. Although these additions do not create new procedures for hospitals, implementing Duchenne screening has involved thoughtful preparation within the laboratory to ensure a seamless launch. As the first state the contracted laboratory will partner with for DMD testing, our teams have worked closely and will continue to do so to align workflows, conduct validation activities, and confirm performance standards. This collaboration reflects South Dakota's leadership in advancing evidence-based newborn screening and demonstrates the strong infrastructure already in place to support accurate, reliable testing from day one. The potential benefits of adding these 3 conditions to the newborn screening panel to families, early development, and long-term health outcomes are substantial. Every year families experience diagnostic delays, uncertainty, and irreversible disease progression before a diagnosis is made. Newborn screening changes that. Early answers reduce fear and uncertainty and connect families more quickly to specialists, treatment options, and support. Adding DMD, MPS1, and MPS2 strengthens our commitment to ensuring all South Dakota newborns have access to early effective care regardless of where they are born or which providers they see. Newborn screening saves lives. It prevents disability and it opens the door to interventions that have the greatest impact when they— when started early. Based on national expert recommendations, strong evidence of medical benefit, unanimous support from our state advisory bodies and readiness of our laboratory and follow-up systems, I respectfully request your approval of the proposed additions to the newborn screening panel. Adopting these rules will ensure that babies born in South Dakota have access to early detection, early intervention, and improved long-term outcomes. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'm happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

Thank you.

Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponents? Seeing none, move on to committee questions. Any questions from the committee? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just curious if you know the prevalence of these conditions in our state versus nationally.

Mr.

Chair, go ahead.

I don't know the prevalence in our state since we're not testing yet, but I can tell you the national prevalence. MPS I is 1 in 100,000 babies. MPS II is less than 40 babies in the U.S. each year. Duchenne muscular dystrophy has the highest prevalence. It's 1 in 3,500 to 5,000 babies.

Any further questions from the committee? Seeing no further questions from the committee, we'll move on to committee discussion and/or action. Senator Larson.

I would move to deem the rulemaking package complete.

Second.

Got a motion from Senator Larson, seconded by Senator Mehlhaff, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on the motion? Senator Larson.

Appreciate Department of Health here taking time to stay current on the best evidence-based practices that come up and making those official in our— in the way we do business here in South Dakota. And that will, of course, help our infant health standards. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Senator. Any further comments from the committee? I will say, for the amount of time I spent having to read the motion statements for appropriations, I don't know that I've ever had to go to that level of detail for a particular condition, so I appreciate the humor on getting to MPS Type 1, Type 2. Thank you. With that, the motion before the committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot?

Aye.

Larson?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Howard?

Aye.

Hansen?

Aye.

Muckey?

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

Unanimous vote. The rulemaking process Hearing none, the process is deemed complete. We'll move on to our next packet from the Department of Health. Adopt rules to establish design, construction, and operational standards for biological filtration pools at lodging establishments as required by House Bill 1299 approved by the 2026 South Dakota Legislature. Thank you for testifying this morning. Go ahead and identify yourself and begin.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Madam Vice Chair and members of the committee, my name is Tori O'Brien. I'm the administrator for the Office of Health Protection within the Department of Health. We are here today to adopt the administrative rules for Article 4402, Chapter 440215, to establish design, construction, operational standards for biological filtration pools at lodging establishments as required by House Bill 1299 that was approved by the 2026 South Dakota Legislature. For those not familiar, the Department of Health is responsible responsible for ensuring the safety of patrons who utilize the pools and spas at lodging establishments throughout the state of South Dakota. The effect of the rules is to establish design, construction, operational standards for biological filtration pools that have not been previously licensed or approved as a pool in the state of South Dakota. The proposed changes do not have a financial impact and does not have an effect on any major process changes. The reason for the proposed rules is to set operational standards for biological filtration pools in South Dakota. For a procedure of these rules that started on August 24th, 2026, we received approval to proceed from the Secretary of the Department of Health. On August 25th, 2026, the Legislative Research Council and Bureau of Finance and Management were served the proposed rules and supporting documentation. And the proposed rules and supporting documents were also posted on the rules.sd.gov website. On September 1st, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Brookings Register and the Rapid City Journal. On September 3rd, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Aberdeen News. On September 2nd, 2026, the notice and proposed rules were emailed to 11 interested parties and posted on the rules.sd.gov website. On September 24th, 2026, our public hearing was held and attendees included representatives from the Department of Health. The department received no oral proponent or opponent testimony during the public hearing as outlined within Form 10 of the rules forms. The department received 2 written public comments through October 4th, 2026, as outlined within Form 10 of the rules forms. On October 7th, 2026, the final rules and supporting documents were submitted to LRC and the committee. Mr. Chair, our goal with the adoption of the new administrative rules is to provide guidance and operational measures for biological filtration pools at lodging establishments in South Dakota. Thank you for your time and consideration. I will stand by for questions.

Thank you.

Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll move on to committee questions. Any questions from the committee? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So did I see that there's a $50 fee for these establishments?

Mr. Chair?

Go ahead.

Yes, there is.

Follow-up?

Follow-up.

Is that the same amount that we charge for other larger establishments that have pools or hot tubs or whatever?

Mr.

Chair?

Go ahead.

Yes, we do charge for a pool and spa at other hotels or lodging establishments that have Follow-up.

But is that the same fee, or did you— because these are smaller establishments, so did you consider having a smaller, you know, a scaled-down fee?

Mr.

Chair, the ones in our hotels are $40, so it would be higher with that for those biological filtration pools.

Follow-up?

Okay, so basically, like, a hotel has— that has a couple of hundred rooms is paying $40, but an establishment that only has 15 sleeping units is paying $50. And could you explain that, Mr.

Chair? Go ahead.

I always appreciate a phone a friend round here.

Can I phone a friend?

Absolutely.

Go ahead and identify yourself.

Mr.

Chair, Jenny Jorgensen, Chief Legal Counsel for the Department of Health.

Put your mic on.

Thank you.

Yeah, so there was a fee that was outlined in statute that we could charge up to, and with biological filtration pools, they are a different design and there are different requirements that these pools have to meet versus regular Follow-up?

Okay.

I understand there's different requirements for them as far as main, you know, building it, maintaining it, but what's the different requirement on you? I mean, they have to submit water samples. I mean, how is, how is what you're doing any different for them versus a larger establishment?

I would have to defer or phone a friend for that one.

Hold on just a second.

No problem.

Thank you for coming forward. Introduce yourself when you can.

Missy Johnson, Deputy Division Director for Licensure and Accreditation.

It would be the same testing for—

What testing do we do for Mr.

Chair? So when we test for chlorine, we test for Pseudomonas, and that's kind of one of the bacteria that will make people sick. And then for biological filtration, they'll test for E. coli would be the main one because it's not a chlorinated pool.

Follow up.

Okay.

Are so are you saying that a larger hotel? You're only testing one thing, but these smaller places with the biological filtration system, you're testing two two things.

Is it?

Go ahead.

And Mr. Chair, if I can expound on that, and and then my question would be: Is that actually? Is that done by you or is that the lab and do they pay separately for the actual testing? They would submit the testing to the lab. And they would pay separately for that?

Yes.

So, Mr. Chairman, back to the original question, what does the agency— They would submit it to the state lab.

It's a state lab or an EPA-certified lab that they have— that they're responsible for submitting the water samples to be tested?

Just to make sure we're keeping the order, Senator Howard, remind me of your original question here.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just basically trying to figure out why a larger establishment is paying more versus these smaller ones and what the agency does differently to justify that difference in cost.

Thanks for the clarification.

It's back, Brenna.

Mr.

Chair, go ahead.

So for the natural biological filtration pools, we test for E. coli, Enterococci, and also we do test for Pseudomonas as well. So we test for three and then. Biological filtration pool compared to a hotel pool.

So it's more.

So it would be more. So we do test for Pseudomonas— sorry, Mr. Chair. So we do test for Pseudomonas in a hotel pool, and we do also test for coliforms. So we do test for 2 in hotels and 3 would be for natural biological filtration pools.

Go ahead.

Okay, but I'm trying to get to, do they pay separately for those lab results or does that include— is this $50 that's paying for the lab to do that testing? If they're paying separately for the lab to do the work, then I'm back to the original question because you're not really doing anything differently. They're submitting the samples to the lab. The lab's doing the testing. You know, I'm trying to get to what is the agency doing differently?

Mr.

Chair, go ahead.

It wouldn't necessarily be anything different, but the fee would be to have a pool or a spa with a lodging establishment. So for our fees, they pay a separate lodging fee with their pool, and then the lab, they do pay separately to have the lab run the test for them as well. So it would be 2 separate fees.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I think I finally got the answer. Which is they do pay separately for the lab, so the agency's not doing any different work. Why the higher fee? If they're paying separately for the lab, the labs do. I get it. The lab is testing for three versus two things, but they're paying separately for the lab fee. Why the higher fee from the agency? It strictly came from the statute, Mr.

Chair.

Came from the statute. Which statute?

What is the difference?

Sorry, Mr. Chair.

It came from.

Go ahead, Senator.

Which statute? It came from House Bill 1299. Statute 4402, right? Go ahead, Code Counsel.

Mr. Chairman, Justin Goetz, Code Counsel. SDCL 34-18 16-10.5 contains the fee, and I'm just trying to find it right here. It's under subdivision 4, and it reads, quote, the permit fee, which may not exceed $50, end quote.

Understood. Thank you. Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay.

So just— I still don't hear a justification. You're allowed to go up to 50, but you've only gone to 40 for huge hotels, but you chose to go to 50 for a smaller establishment. And to me, it just— unless you have other justification, I'm not hearing a justification. You can't blame it on statute when the statute says it's on you to decide what that fee is, and you have the choice to go up to there, and you chose to go higher for for a smaller establishment. So do you have a justification?

Go ahead.

I don't.

Any further questions from the committee? Oh, go ahead. Please identify yourself. I'm assuming you're answering this previous question.

Good morning, Mr.

Chair, members of the committee.

Kasey Defenbaugh, Division Director for Licensure and Accreditation.

Generally speaking, what I would say is for our licensed establishments, the fees have not been updated in probably 15-plus years.

So although our fees are at $40, they are probably lower than they should be despite not being increased.

It's something that we're evaluating over time. We have not made any adjustments, but looking at that and where we have proposed and what the authority allows within the bill, we have chosen to move at $50 within our authority.

Thank you.

Appreciate the clarification. Any further questions from the committee? Any further questions? Seeing none, we will move on to committee discussion and/or action.

Mr. Chair, Senator Mehlhaff, I would motion that we deem this rulemaking process complete.

Second.

I have a motion from Senator Mehlhaff, second from Senator Larson, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on your motion?

I would just say that I certainly have sympathy for the concerns raised by Senator Howard. However, this is a new type of permit that was authorized in the last session. And I think even though $50 is more than what's currently charged established motels that are larger, creating a new permit and setting it as is allowed by statutes is not unreasonable.

Thank you. Any further comments on the motion? Senator Howard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be a no on this. Just, I, you know, I know you were allowed to do that, but I just don't— I don't see it as being necessary. And personally, I think you should have bumped up the other fees first. If that's what— if you think they're too low, address those first. But to pass a rule that puts a higher burden on a smaller Smaller business, just I don't know. It I just can't support it. So I'm sorry.

Thank you. Any further comments from the committee on the motion? Seeing no further discussion on the motion, the question for the committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

I'm sorry.

Aye.

Larson?

Aye.

Mehlhaff?

Aye.

Howard?

Nay.

Hansen?

Aye.

Muckey?

Aye.

Mr. Chair, 5 yeas, 1 nay.

With a majority vote of the committee, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. Moving on to our next Department of Health packet, amend rules update and clarify vital records requirements by modernizing terminology, refining filing and amendment procedures, and improving consistency across birth, death, and marriage registration processes. Thank you for testifying this morning. Go ahead and introduce yourself and proceed.

Good morning. I am Shawna Flax, the State Registrar with the Office of Vital Records for the Department of Health. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to present the proposed updates to Administrative Rules of South Dakota 4409, which govern vital records. The Department of Health is responsible for the accurate, secure, and timely registration of vital events, including births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, in accordance with state codified law. The proposed updates modernize language, clarify statutory authority, remove outdated provisions, and strengthen consistency across the vital records system. On May 27th, 2026, the Department of Health received approval from the Secretary of Health to proceed with the rules hearing process for ARSD 4409. On that same day, LRC and the Bureau of Finance and Management were served the proposed rules and supporting documents. Notice of the proposed updates were emailed to interested stakeholders, including healthcare partners, legal representatives, and professional associations. Between September 1st and September 3rd, 2026, the notice of public hearing was published in the Brookings Registrar, Aberdeen News, and Rapid City Journal. The department held its public hearing on September 24th, 2026, with attendees from the Department of Health. Public comment was accepted through October 4th, 2026. Comments that were received were reviewed and evaluated for relevance and consistency with statutory authority. On October 6th, 2026, the final rules and supporting documentation were submitted to LRC and committee. For a quick summary of the rule changes for Chapter 440901, for requirements for preparation of vital records, The revisions clarify that records must contain all required information, appropriate signatures, and be free of alterations. Updates also ensure that cause of death documentation includes a full etiological explanation consistent with the national standards. Chapter 440902, Birth Registration, revisions modernize and clarify procedures related to delayed birth registration, evidence requirements and out-of-institution births. Updates codify acceptable documentation, remove outdated references, and ensure consistency with statutory requirements. Chapter 440903, the revisions for delayed registration of death clarify requirements for documentation when a death is not registered within 1 year, aligning with statutory provisions and standardizing evidence needed to validate delayed registrations. Chapter 44.0905, revisions to amendments of records, establish a clear requirement for amending vital records, including documentary evidence standards, who may request the amendments, and how amendments are processed. Revisions clarify when court orders are required and reinforce security and authentication requirements for those amendments. Chapter 440906, Disclosure of Information. These revisions modernize application procedures, define valid forms of identification, and clarify requirements for an in-person, mailed, phone, and online request. Fee amounts are restated in plain language and alignment with statute is improved. Chapter 440907, the revisions to delayed certificates of marriage, clarify the facts that are required for delayed marriage registration, the acceptable evidence, and procedures for denial when documentation is insufficient. These revisions were developed to improve clarity for applicants, local registrars, healthcare providers, and the courts. They also help align administrative rules with current South Dakota codified laws, incorporate modern terminology and remove outdated or duplicative language, strengthen consistency across all vital records processes, support accurate and secure public health statistics and reporting, and ensure the rules reflect the current operational and legal standards for vital records administration. These updates do not change the responsibilities of the registrants or the public, but instead they ensure that the department's processes adhere to clear, consistent, and enforceable standards. Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for your careful review and ongoing partnership in ensuring South Dakota maintains an accurate and dependable system of vital records. The Department of Health appreciates the committee's time and consideration of these important updates to ARSD 4409. I respectfully stand by for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponent testimony? Seeing none, move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponent testimony? Seeing none, move on to committee questions. Any questions from the committee? Seeing no questions, move on to committee discussion and/or action.

Mr. Chair, I would move that we deem the rulemaking process complete.

Second.

I have a motion by Senator Mehlhaff, seconded by Senator Howard, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on the motion? Seeing no comments from the committee, motion before the committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot?

Aye.

Larson?

Aye. Mehlhaff?

Aye. Howard?

Aye.

Hansen?

Aye.

Muckey?

Aye.

Mr.

Chair, unanimous.

Unanimous vote. The rulemaking process is deemed complete. Marathon is almost to an end here, folks. We are at the last packet. School Finance Accountability Board amend and repeal rules to clarify the process for which a district may A request for waiver from the School Finance Accountability Board regarding the state minimum teacher salary, average teacher salary, or the general cash fund balance requirements, and to remove the Joint Committee on Appropriations from the waiver process. Good to see you, Mr. Stoser. Go ahead with your proponent testimony.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Cody Stoser, Division Director for Finance Management in the Department of Education. I don't have any big words like Department of Health, so I won't have to pronounce those. But the proposed rules under consideration today are due to a change to SDCL 145.38 during the 2026 legislative session. I'll just provide a brief summary about these proposed rule changes. The rules have been updated to include the general fund monthly cash balance limitation and the minimum teacher salary statutory references. Previously, this board did not have the rulemaking authority over these 2 accountabilities. That's why we're adding those today. The Department of Education notification of violation and the waiver submission process timeline have been updated as well as the required documentation to be included in the waivers or the waiver requests. Also with House Bill 1249 that was passed in the 26th session, it was amended that the statute remove the joint Committee on Appropriations from a final approval process. This change is proposed to be repealed in the rules package that you see. The School Finance Accountability Board unanimously approved these changes during the public hearing on September 29th. The proposed rule changes received no public comment or testimony. We sent copies over, over of the rules to the education groups including ASBSD, SASD, South Dakota Parent Teachers Association, Disability Rights of South Dakota, South Dakota Board of Regents, and SDEA. All recommended changes from LRC were adopted, and forms— on forms 5 and 14 were amended to include the additional information requested by LRC. So I thank you for your time, and we ask that you deem the rules process as complete, and I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you. Any further proponent testimony? Any further proponents? Seeing none, we'll move on to opponent testimony. Do we have any opponent testimony? Seeing none, we'll move on to committee questions. Any questions from the committee? Seeing no questions, move on to committee discussion and/or action. Senator Larson.

I would move that this rulemaking process be deemed complete.

I have a motion from Senator Larson, seconded by Senator Howard, to deem the rulemaking process complete. Any comments on your motion?

Not really. It seems like a common sense way to make things more flexible for those schools that may fall on the extremes of either being too small or— just gives another option. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any further comments on the motion? I'll add a little bit too. I know this is a topic of discussion for some of our workgroups, or one of our workgroups in Joint Committee on Appropriations last session. I know we worked to find a resolution to deal with the sort of ping-ponging effect between the board and JCA, and so I'm glad we were able to resolve that. I know this gets us to that point. So with that, any further comments? If not, the motion before The committee is to deem the rulemaking process complete. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

DeGroot.

Aye.

Larson.

Aye.

Mehlhaff.

Aye.

Howard.

Aye.

Hansen.

Aye.

Muckey.

Aye.

Mr. Chair, unanimous.

With a unanimous vote, the rulemaking process is deemed complete. And with that, I get to pass the gavel back to Chair Hansen.

All right. Thank you, everybody. We have a staff report. Mr. Goetz.

Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, Justin Goetz, Code Council. Thank you for your liberty here in just offering a brief comment. I want to thank the committee for all of the work that went into this particular meeting, all 19 rules packets. And in keeping with that, I want to thank our staff here in the Code Council Division for all the work that went into this. It was serendipity, I guess, that we should add staff when we did, because there is no way that we could have made it through this nearly as well as we did on the staff end without the help of Anna Madsen, Ben Vukovich. They are just doing so much great work behind the scenes. You will even see Anna's work with these staff memos here. Again, without them being on board and all the work that Kelly is already doing and I'm doing, it wouldn't have been possible to get you what you got here today. So we are immensely grateful. Thank you for the investment that you made in our division.

Well, thank you for all your work. We really appreciate it tremendously. We will have another meeting, so— yeah, Mr. Goetz.

Apologies, Mr. Chairman. I had this note here. Given what was discussed earlier, the possibility then is, given the November 10th meeting of the e-board, but also the fact that there is a rules meeting, a public hearing for the Department of Transportation on October 29th, should this committee be interested in possibly hearing both the GF&P as well as the Department of Transportation rules? One date that was thrown out is November 12th, a Thursday. That would be the day after Veterans Day, from 10:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m. start time. We'll reserve the room for longer, but it shouldn't go too terribly long given the subject of the meeting, the 2 rule packets.

Does the 12th look okay for everybody?

Okay.

Yep.

Sounds good. We'll plan on that. We'll plan on just meeting remotely for that, so save you the trip in. Okay, so with that, that concludes our business for the day. We'll see you next time. Chair, entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Moved by Muckey, seconded by Senator Howard. All those in favor of adjournment will say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, nay. That motion carries.

We are adjourned.