By Rep. Leslie Heinemann
With two weeks of the session behind us, it has been an enjoyable and learning experience!
Agency bills were introduced, many of which dealt with word changes and updating state code. I am on the Health and Human Services Committee, and we have heard from the Department of Social Services and the Board of Hearing Aid Dispensers and Audiologists, to name a few.
Some of you may have heard about the Sentinel Bill, HB 1087 of which I am a co-sponsor. This bill would allow school boards, at their discretion, to create, establish and supervise individual school sentinel programs to promote school safety.  We have a similar program in place at the Flandreau Public Schools, and I like the idea of local control. Some school boards may see a need for it, and others may not.  I believe it is important to work with local law enforcement, so that everyone is aware of the personnel involved. If you have any thoughts, let me know. I appreciate your input.
This past week, the Tourism Bill, HB 1066, recieved a lot of support in both the House and Senate and was passed by a large majority. As  you may have heard, the sunset provision would have ended that extra half cent tax.  I supported removing the sunset provision so that the extra revenue would allow the Department of Tourism to promote South Dakota to a larger regional market.
It will be difficult to come to a final state budget if, like Senator Thune alluded to recently,  we fail to  deal with entitlements at the national level. We need a safety net in place  for those citizens in our society, but we need to deal with our deficit as well.
If you are interested in testifying on a bill, or just coming out to Pierre to see how the process works, let me know and I’ll do what I can to facilitate your time here. We enjoy seeing familiar faces and if you want to get involved in the process, there’s plenty of opportunity!
When you send me an e-mail, please sign it as the address does not always show me who the person is, and you can imagine the mass e-mails that are sent to each representative.
This next week will be a busy one. I’ll have more on the different bills then.
As always, I am grateful for and humbled by the responsibility to serve the people of District 8. Please contact me at Rep.Heinemann@state.sd.us or the House phone at 605-773-3851.

By Rep. Scott Parsley The second week of the 88th session of the South Dakota Legislature is now in the history books. The week saw action on several committee bills including two major issues. The two committees on which I serve began to hear bills this week. In House State Affairs committee we heard several bills relating to trust funds and the regulations under which they operate. The committee also voted to allow trust funds to create Captive Insurance Companies, a form of self-insurance. In Commerce and Energy the committee heard a report from the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Regulation and her staff providing the committee with an overview of the duties and responsibilities of the department. We also acted on two bills dealing with uniform insurance review and a third bill dealing with penalties for unemployment fraud. In dealing with a major piece of legislation the Senate State Affairs committee heard and unanimously sent the criminal reform bill SB 70, the Public Safety Improvement Act, to the Senate floor. This legislation adopts the use of drug and alcohol courts and changes the sentencing requirements for non-violent offenders who have committed crimes related to drug and alcohol addiction. The legislation would provide for treatment for drug and alcohol related issues rather than jail time. The new drug and alcohol courts would have very strict treatment, work and check-in requirements in order to avoid jail time for the offense. This type of alternate sentencing has been used with a great deal of success in many other states, and I am very optimistic about this approach to dealing with non-violent alcohol and drug related crimes. Besides the evidence that shows offenders have a significantly reduced recidivism rate when sentenced to drug and alcohol court instead of prison, this legislation has the potential to save the state tax payers over $200 million over the next 10 years by not having to build new prisons. The second major piece of legislation that saw action this week was making permanent a half cent sales tax to fund the tourism promotion for the state. The House Taxation committee passed the bill on a 12 to one vote and the issue passed the House of Representatives on Friday and now moves over to the Senate. These funds are used to promote tourism in South Dakota. There were several other bills introduced this week including bills directed at education funding. For the most part I have resisted signing these bills until we have a bill that will address permanently raising the base budget for education to begin to recapture funds taken from education in 2011. I am still optimistic that we may find a way to expand Medicaid coverage to the 48 thousand uninsured South Dakotans and discussions continue on this issue. During this week there was one bill introduced regarding guns in schools. This bill would make it permissible for school boards to decide if they want to have armed staff in their schools. As always I am very interested in hearing any issues or concerns you have and can be contacted at rep.parsley@state.sd.us.

By Sen. Russell Olson, District 8, Senate Majority Leader

Last summer, I chaired the Postsecondary Education Committee, where a bi-partisan group of House and Senate members studied the purpose and funding for Postsecondary Education in South Dakota. As a result of the recommendations of that study, I testified last week as the prime sponsor on a package of bills intended to improve performance and funding for higher education in South Dakota.
Senate Bills 3, 4 and 5 were heard in Senate Education and I am proud to say that all three passed out of committee. The committee was composed of legislators who had knowledge of postsecondary education and who fully understand the state appropriation process. Of the 15 members of the committee, eight are legislators who have served on the appropriations committee. Nine of those members are currently in the Senate, including the chair and vice chair of appropriations and the chair of the Senate Education Committee.
Our committee visited five locations over the summer of postsecondary education including Dakota State University. The committee invited representatives from both the Board of Regents and the technical institutes to testify at multiple meetings. The three bills collectively, will for the first time, define the purpose for public postsecondary education.
The bills establish policy goals for postsecondary education, create a means for on-going policy review and engagement of policymakers, including legislators, in the general goals process. We will now have a comprehensive review of all higher education policy for both our universities and our technical institutes. This package of bills will set up a framework for providing higher education systems with resources that include performance funding related to policy goals, which allows us to focus on state policy level issues and systems rather than individual institutions.
These meetings and the input that we gathered, I believe is the making of good public policy and the reason I feel they will pass both chambers of the legislature and be signed by the Governor.
I will bring you more of my perspective and involvement in the Public Safety Improvement Act, as well as other legislation that I will be carrying during this session in next week’s article.
I  hope to hear from you on issues that are important to you.  I can be reached at sen.russellolson@state.sd.us or at my office in Pierre at 605-773-3828.