During her tenure as the governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem liked to remind legislators at budget time that the money they were dealing with was not their own.

From a 2019 address to the Legislature: “I’m committed to maintaining the fiscal integrity for which our state is known. We won’t spend money we don’t have. We will not raise taxes.”

From 2022: “I recognize that taxpayer dollars are not our own — they belong to the people of South Dakota. We all must remember throughout our budget discussions that this money belongs to the hard-working people of South Dakota.”

From 2025: “During my time as governor, I have always kept my budget proposals focused on our people, not government programs. After all, this is the people’s money. They entrust it to us and expect us to spend it wisely and responsibly.”

Those are good reminders that legislators should take to heart. However, it seems that Noem was just reading from the teleprompter rather than paying attention to her own advice. Recently Noem’s actions with taxpayer dollars were the topic of discussion on a couple of fronts.

A South Dakota Searchlight story noted that the Government Operations and Audit Committee in Pierre was trying to get answers about how Noem rang up $750,000 on her state credit card during her six years as governor. Noem admonished lawmakers to look out for the way taxpayer dollars were spent while she was racking up travel expenses on a book tour, a Canadian hunting excursion and various out-of-state political trips to tout the hopes of Republican candidates, including Donald Trump.

Who’s to say if South Dakota will ever have another governor like Noem who became the darling of the Republican Party for her reaction to the pandemic. During her many travels, she was quick to praise South Dakota’s maskless response to the pandemic and just as quick to label as fake news anyone who dared point out that the state was leading the league in per capita COVID-19 deaths.

Lawmakers on the committee learned that under the current laws, there isn’t much that state bookkeepers can do when called on to cover a governor’s credit card expenses. They can question a credit card charge, but if it isn’t then handled voluntarily by the elected official, the state has to pay.

Basically, the current law treats elected officials like adults. As adults, those officials should know when the people should pay and when they should reach into their own wallets to cover any expense that doesn’t directly have anything to do with their elected positions. Given the example Noem set, lawmakers who took her advice about fiscal integrity seriously are now faced with proposing legislation that calls for creating some sort of credit card overseer or nanny. That’s a move that wouldn’t be needed if Noem’s credit card use was more statesmanlike instead of resembling a sailor on leave.

Another Searchlight story published on the same day chronicled Noem’s appearance before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. At the meeting, Noem had it pointed out that her new department has budget problems.

“Your department is out of control,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. “You are running out of money.”

Given that Noem has been given responsibility for Trump’s signature issue — immigration control — it would certainly be a bad look for the president if the department charged with rounding up illegal immigrants ran out of funds before the end of the fiscal year. Fiscal restraint may be the order of the day as Noem works for a man who changes Cabinet secretaries the way other presidents changed their socks.

For her part, Noem doesn’t seem like she’s pinching pennies, spending $100 million on TV commercials that praise Trump policies and warn immigrants not to come to the United States illegally.

She has also unveiled a plan to offer $1,000 in “travel assistance” to illegal immigrants who self-deport. The cost of that could be as much as $1 billion if Trump reaches his goal of deporting 1 million people. Those hardly seem like the actions of someone who has been entrusted by taxpayers to spend their funds “wisely and responsibly.”

All of Noem’s budget guidance for South Dakota lawmakers should have come with another bit of helpful advice: Do as I say, not as I do.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.

I always look forward to South Dakota Searchlight’s daily email of state and national news. The editor who puts that email together probably didn’t mean for it to happen, but one day recently there was quite a juxtaposition of two stories about prisons.

In the state news there was reporting about Gov. Larry Rhoden doing the right thing by suspending legislative action on the new prison and appointing a committee to seek a way forward on the project. In the national news there was another story about a $1 billion contract the federal government was signing with GEO Group, a private prison company, for detaining up to 1,000 immigrants in New Jersey.

The story about the appointment of Rhoden’s committee to work on the prison project was good news for South Dakota. That project has been lamented by various groups ever since its inception. Rhoden’s call for a “reset” was the right one after the Legislature proved that it was unwilling to release the funding for the 1,500-bed men’s prison that would be located about 15 miles south of Sioux Falls.

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The reset work group, made up of legislators and various law enforcement types, will meet four times starting on April 2, culminating in a special legislative session on July 22. In announcing the reset, Rhoden kept talking about “a new prison.” Don’t be surprised, however, if the work group finds that the easiest way forward is to bulk up existing prison facilities or use current Corrections Department locations rather than pick another fight with a new set of neighbors who don’t want a prison in their backyard.

As for the New Jersey prison story, that one was full of dollar signs. George Zoley, the founder and executive chairman of GEO Group, talked about how increasing the bed capacity at the company’s prisons, due to the need to detain more immigrants, could result in annual revenues up to $600 million.

One of the elements that connects the two stories is their similar price tags — the billion dollar cost of the federal contract and the $825 million price tag on South Dakota’s prison project. Former Gov. Kristi Noem and the Legislature worked for years to save enough for a new prison. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, run now by Noem as secretary of Homeland Security, agreed to a billion-dollar prison contract with the stroke of a pen.

After six years as South Dakota’s governor, leading a federal agency must seem like heaven for Noem when it comes to getting the prison space that she needs:

No Lincoln County neighbors who got cranky and vocal when they were surprised by the state’s plan to plop down a new prison next door.No litigation over the state’s failure to apply for a county zoning permit.No recalcitrant new-age Republican lawmakers who refuse to go along with the governor’s plan for a new prison.No worries that the $62 million allocated for prison design and site prep work on her watch — much of which has already been spent — might be wasted if the “reset” work group decides to go in another direction.

South Dakota finds itself having to “reset” its prison project largely because of Noem’s management style. With her penchant for secrecy and her my-way-or-the-highway style of negotiations, she poisoned the project since its inception. If Noem had been open about the process, willing to follow local rules and welcoming of other ideas and opinions, the state would be well on its way to building a new men’s prison rather than being forced to start over.

Rhoden made a difficult choice when he made the right call to give the state’s prison project more study. Too bad that kind of clear-headed leadership has not been on display in Pierre since the start of the project.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.

Soon Gov. Kristi Noem could be installed as the next Secretary of Homeland Security. In one of her last official acts as governor, Noem managed to instill some uncertainty in South Dakota’s public education system.

During her budget speech, Noem claimed she wanted to continue to “prioritize education.” Notice that she didn’t say “prioritize public education.” In what was likely her final budget address to the Legislature, Noem proposed an ongoing $4 million expenditure to help families pay for private school tuition and other forms of alternative instruction.

Her largesse toward families seeking to pay for a private school education came during a budget address in which she:

Offered a paltry 1.25% funding increase for the “big three” of health care, public education and state employee salaries.Unveiled $71.9 million in budget reductions and discretionary changes.Included in the budget cuts a $2 million reduction for the Board of Regents and a $3.6 million cut for South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Noem proposed that the state would pay about $3,000 per student annually for private school tuition or alternative instruction. Private schools, homeschoolers and other forms of alternative instruction operate under a different set of rules. It’s a veritable wild west of schools that can be unaccredited or accredited by someone other than the state. In other words, good luck figuring out how your tax dollars are being spent.

It’s probably possible to figure out how much money the state of South Dakota has invested in public education since statehood. Instead of doing the math, let’s just assume it totals in the billions of dollars. It seems at cross purposes for the state to make that kind of long-term investment in public education only to turn around and start funding its competitors.

Instead of tackling the bigger issues in public education, Noem has revved up the Legislature for a fight over an idea that’s trendy in conservative circles. It’s also an idea that the state can’t afford. Any state budget that proposes tens of millions in cuts isn’t likely to have a spare $4 million. If there is $4 million extra in the state budget, it should be funneled into teacher salaries.

Through neglect and short-sightedness lawmakers and the governor have let teachers’s salaries sink back near the bottom of the barrel nationally. Noem’s proposed 1.25% increase in education funding certainly isn’t going to do much to get South Dakota’s national teacher salary ranking out of the basement.

With its low teacher salary ranking, South Dakota’s universities find themselves training the next generation of teachers for the surrounding states that make a greater attempt to pay teachers what they are worth. When qualified teachers become harder to attract because of South Dakota’s low salaries, school districts will be forced to cut their offerings, hamstringing the very education that Noem says she has gone to such great lengths to “prioritize.”

The last time South Dakota made any progress in this area was in 2016 when Gov. Dennis Daugaard led an effort to raise the state sales tax by half a percent with some of the funds dedicated to raising teachers’ salaries. Since then, lawmakers have cut the state sales tax and mandated a $45,000 minimum salary for public school teachers without offering any extra funding to help schools reach that goal.

Given the state of the budget Noem proposed, lawmakers would do well to put their efforts into protecting public education and finding a funding source that could ensure that the state’s teacher salaries are no longer a national embarrassment.

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South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.

She didn’t really say it in so many words, but it was obvious to anyone who listened to Gov. Kristi Noem’s budget speech. She’s breaking up with us. Maybe she didn’t want to jinx the next chapter of her life, so she never really came out and said she was leaving us. Read between the lines, though, and you can tell that her bags are packed.

It seems like only yesterday we renewed our vows for another four years. Now, suddenly, it’s over.

We always knew that in her role as governor, there was an expiration date on our relationship. Still, we have to wonder why we weren’t good enough, why South Dakota wasn’t good enough to keep her here. It seems the lure of the nation’s capital and a new job as secretary of Homeland Security was just too enticing, even after all we’ve shared.

There are some hurt feelings in any breakup. In her speech, Noem stressed the state government’s role in providing safety for its citizens. She didn’t mention the way she stretched her notion of providing safety for South Dakotans all the way to the Texas border. Her idea of keeping us safe cost us millions of dollars. It was her investment in those National Guard deployments that was likely one of the factors that led to her big new job. A thank-you would have been nice.

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Sometimes in a breakup the most important words are those that are left unsaid. Her budget speech used 3,700 words yet never touched on increasing teacher pay, property tax reform or tribal relations.

She knows the last time the state stepped in to raise teacher pay out of the basement of national rankings, it took a task force and a sales tax increase. She knows that property tax reform is so complex that the best ideas floated by lawmakers so far include raising the sales tax to decrease property taxes. That amounts to a wash for those of us who happen to own property and buy things. She knows that the hurt feelings of the tribes are best healed with time and a new governor who won’t let a zeal for public safety lead to a claim that tribal leaders are in cahoots with drug cartels.

It must have taken quite an effort for her to quell her natural inclination for leadership to avoid tackling these problems. You can tell by these things Noem didn’t say that it’s only a matter of time before she’s out the door, leaving those challenges for our next governor.

In every relationship there are mysteries — things that aren’t so easily explained. They say some mystery keeps a relationship healthy. With Noem, that’s hard to tell. In her speech, she went on at some length to praise the economy we shared. She said South Dakota’s economy is the best in the nation. If our economy is so good, why is the budget she proposed so austere? She admonished legislators to “make a permanent tax cut for the people of South Dakota,” but isn’t that cut one of the reasons why sales tax collections have been so sluggish?

It’s hard not to be bitter about the sudden end of a six-year relationship. It’s probably best to concentrate on the good times: the Custer State Park Buffalo Roundups, the balanced budgets and that fireworks-filled night at Mount Rushmore, although that celebration was centered on the man who will take her away from us.

It hurts to imagine her renting a new place to live in Washington, D.C. It’s impossible to know if her new landlord will allow pets. It’s a little late now, but there are plenty of us who would have offered to take care of Cricket.

It’s likely Noem would say that instead of the end, this is the start of a new relationship. Rather than leading us as our governor, she’ll be protecting us from her perch at Homeland Security. And we’ll see her when she comes home. We’ll see her on TV. But it just won’t be the same. With luck, the pain of loss will heal in time. After a breakup, maybe the best we can hope for is that we can still be friends.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com.

During my newspaper career I was tasked with writing five editorials a week. Consequently, I wasn’t choosy about revisiting some subjects. If it was in the news, it was fair game for an editorial. Fortunately for me, the Public Broadcasting Service was in the news a few times a year, so I grew accustomed to commenting about it often. I was not a fan.

I wasn’t like those conservatives who railed against what they perceived as Public Broadcasting’s left-leaning news coverage. My opposition was economic.

In addition to government funding, PBS makes its money through donations from viewers, charitable organizations and businesses. However, the recognition of business donations supporting certain programs serves as a commercial message. Gone are the days when just a donor’s company name would be mentioned. Now we sit through a slogan, a list of services, an accounting of business awards. In other words, it’s a commercial on a government-funded, supposedly commercial-free network.

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PBS fans may be able to accept that, but it didn’t seem right to me that the newspaper I worked for, which was reliant on advertising, should be in competition for ads with an entity that was supported by the government. My own tax dollars were being used against my employer. It didn’t seem fair.

My personal experience with PBS wasn’t a good one, either. It seemed every time I settled in to watch a program on South Dakota Public Broadcasting it was during Pledge Week. Consequently, my attempt to watch The Highwaymen in concert was halted every couple of songs by hosts with an agenda. First, they would congratulate viewers for having the good taste to watch the program they had just interrupted. Then they would explain that this was just a sample of the good programming that needed my support.

Eventually there would be a pitch for money, usually tied to some sort of swag. During Highwaymen Interruptus they offered a CD for a smaller donation, a boxed set for a larger donation. I think the really big donors got all that and a concert-worn Highwaymen bandana with that authentic Willie Nelson dressing room aroma. Just when I thought it was time to get back to Waylon and Johnny, the hosts would go through the whole spiel again.

It left me hoping that there was an even more generous donation level. If I could afford to write a really, really big check, I’d be allowed to go to the home of one of the hosts and interrupt him while he tried to watch TV.

As you can see, I still have issues.

Given my problematic experience with SDPB, you’d probably think I would welcome the news that Gov. Kristi Noem wants to cut that entity’s budget by $3.6 million. With the state looking down the barrel of sluggish sales tax receipts and a commitment to an almost $1 billion prison project, something had to go. If Noem has her way, she’ll shut down “Sesame Street” and board up “Downton Abbey.”

Public broadcasting in South Dakota is more than just TV and radio programming. One of the often overlooked offerings of SDPB is its wall-to-wall broadcasts of the happenings in the state Legislature. SDPB makes available, over the internet, every committee meeting as well as all the floor action in the House and Senate.

This isn’t one guy with a microphone running around the Capitol, but rather a sophisticated system that allows the internet broadcast of more than 40 committee hearings per week as well as all eight weekly sessions of the House and Senate.

Because of its partnership with SDPB, the workings of Legislature are tremendously transparent. Using the Legislative Research Council website, it’s possible to track legislation and know when it’s coming up for discussion in committee. That committee hearing will be broadcast by SDPB. No matter where they are in the state, it’s possible for citizens to track legislation they’re interested in through committees in both chambers as well as floor action in the House and Senate.

I know that system works because I used it. I stayed away from the Capitol during the COVID-19 pandemic, but worked as a freelance reporter for the Rapid City Journal. From my desk in Brookings I was able to monitor the progress of bills of interest to West River readers. From the meetings I monitored over the internet I was able to write stories about a visitors’ center at Custer State Park, funding for the Liberty Wellness Center at Box Elder and funding for a hangar area at Rapid City Regional Airport. I’m not particularly tech savvy. If I can track legislation using this system, any citizen can.

Lawmakers can’t afford to build such a wonderful way for citizens to track their Legislature and then shut it down in the name of budget cuts. It’s hard to put a price tag on the government accountability and transparency that the SDPB system brings to the legislative process.

If the Legislature goes through with the cuts proposed by Noem, I may find myself in an untenable position. After years of grousing about the unfairness of government-funded competition for newspapers, I may be in the seemingly hypocritical position of having to make a donation to SDPB. I hope they still have some of those bandanas.

South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seth Tupper for questions: info@southdakotasearchlight.com. Follow South Dakota Searchlight on Facebook and X.