An affordability and opportunity agenda for District 32
Afford to Live Here
Everybody pays in. Everybody should get something back.
Four planks, one argument. Sales tax and property tax. What a job pays against what a life costs. A good school for every kid in this district. And a real path back for people who did their time. Every number on this page has a source, and the ones still being verified are not on it.
The four planks
- Plank 1Tax Fairness for RentersIf you pay the tax, you should get the relief.sales taxes · property taxes
- Plank 2The Paycheck GapA full-time job should cover a life.affordability · the ability to survive in this economy
- Plank 3Every Kid, Every Zip CodeWhich side of town a family can afford should not decide what education a child gets.accessibility to a good education · our children's growth
- Plank 4The Path BackDo the time, then earn your way back. The state should not be the thing standing in the doorway.recidivism
Plank 1 · sales taxes and property taxes
Tax Fairness for Renters
Renters pay property tax inside their rent and sales tax at the register. Pierre cut the property tax for owners and left the renters paying for it.
If you pay the tax, you should get the relief.
A landlord's property tax is a cost of operating the building. It is recovered in the rent. That is not a theory, it is how every other operating cost works.
So when property taxes rise, rent rises. When property taxes are cut for owner-occupied homes only, renters keep paying the tax and get none of the cut.
South Dakota has no income tax, so the sales tax is how the state funds itself. A sales tax takes a bigger share of a small income than a large one, because a family spending everything it earns is taxed on everything it earns.
That is the whole problem in one sentence. The relief goes to people who own. The bill goes to everybody.
| The option | What it actually does |
|---|---|
| Leave it as written | Cuts one tax, raises another. The burden shifts onto consumers and renters. |
| Repeal the relief | Takes back a tax cut homeowners already have. Restores the original problem and punishes people who did nothing wrong. |
| Reform, this plan | Keeps the cut, holds the rate, funds it with restraint, extends relief to renters. Cuts taxes without raising one. |
What I would file
- Ask 1
A renter's rebate
Treat a defined share of annual rent as property tax paid and make renters eligible for the same relief homeowners receive. South Dakota already runs a property tax refund program for elderly and disabled homeowners, so the administrative pattern exists. This extends a program rather than inventing one.
- Ask 2
Stop the sales tax rate going back up
This is the single biggest item for renters and low-income families, because it is the part they pay and get nothing back for. Hold the rate and fund relief through spending restraint.
- Ask 3
Cap general fund growth to population plus inflation
This is how the plan is paid for, and it is the answer to the only serious question the plan will get. Dedicate the difference to relief rather than to new programs.
- Ask 4
Pass-through transparency
Require that the property tax component of a rental unit be disclosed to the tenant. If relief flows to rental property, the tenant should be able to see it. Transparency is what makes relief traceable instead of theoretical.
- Ask 5
Index the senior and disabled thresholds
So people stop aging out of eligibility because a dollar figure was written years ago and never adjusted while their actual buying power fell.
- Ask 6
Build the supply that actually lowers rent
Property tax abatement for new workforce housing and fewer permitting barriers for infill in downtown and North Rapid. A rebate helps a family this year. Supply is what lowers rent structurally.
Why this is the conservative position
Nobody to the right can outflank a position that cuts taxes and raises none, paid for by spending less.
Plank 2 · affordability and the ability to survive in this economy
The Paycheck Gap
Rent, childcare, groceries and utilities all went up. The paycheck did not keep up. That gap is the whole story of this district.
A full-time job should cover a life.
This is not a complaint about the economy in the abstract. It is arithmetic. Take what a job in Rapid City pays. Subtract rent. Subtract childcare. Subtract groceries, gas, power and heat. Ask what is left.
For a lot of families here the answer is nothing, and for some it is less than nothing, which is what debt is.
Childcare is the piece that breaks the math. When care for one child costs about what rent costs, a second income stops being a way to get ahead and becomes a way to break even.
The state does not fix this by sending checks. It fixes it by removing the things making the essentials expensive, starting with housing supply, childcare capacity and the tax on everything a family buys.
What I would file
- Ask 1
Treat housing supply as the rent policy
Rent is high because there is not enough housing. Abatement for workforce and infill construction, faster permitting, and no state barrier to a city converting vacant downtown space into housing.
- Ask 2
Childcare capacity, treated as workforce policy
Fix the licensing and ratio rules that keep small in-home providers from opening, and stop the benefit cliff that punishes a parent for taking a raise. This is a supply problem wearing a family problem's clothes.
- Ask 3
Hold the line on the tax at the register
The same ask as plank one, seen from the household side. Every tenth of a percent on the sales tax is a grocery bill.
- Ask 4
Utility rate accountability
Rate increases should face a real burden of proof at the Public Utilities Commission, with the household impact stated in dollars for an average Rapid City bill, not in percentages.
- Ask 5
Stop counting a job as a fix when it is not one
If the state is going to celebrate low unemployment, it should publish what those jobs pay against what it costs to live in the county where they are.
Why this is the conservative position
Supply, not subsidy. Every ask here removes a government barrier or asks the government to prove its case before taking more.
Plank 3 · accessibility to a good education and our children's growth
Every Kid, Every Zip Code
A kid in North Rapid and a kid across town are supposed to be getting the same shot. The numbers say they are not.
Which side of town a family can afford should not decide what education a child gets.
Parents in this district are not asking for a philosophy of education. They are asking whether their kid can read, whether the teacher will still be there in March, and whether there is anywhere for a nine year old to be at four in the afternoon.
Those are access questions, not curriculum questions, and they are the ones this district actually faces.
Access has a cost side too. Before and after school care, transportation, a device that works at home, and a summer that is not a four month slide backward all cost money that a family here may not have.
And the growth question is bigger than school. A child does better with both parents in their life. That is the one place this campaign has standing nobody else in the race has, and it belongs in the education conversation rather than off in a corner labeled family law.
What I would file
- Ask 1
Fund the formula against real costs
State aid that rises with what it actually costs to run a school, so a district is not choosing annually between keeping teachers and keeping programs.
- Ask 2
Teacher pay that stops the bleed
South Dakota's pay rank is a recruitment problem before it is a fairness problem. A vacancy is a classroom without a teacher, which is an access problem for the kid sitting in it.
- Ask 3
Early childhood, honestly
South Dakota is one of a very small number of states with no state funded pre-kindergarten. A child who arrives at kindergarten already behind tends to stay behind, and catching up later costs more than starting even.
- Ask 4
Attack chronic absence as the access signal it is
A kid who is not there cannot learn. Absence tracks transportation, housing instability and care gaps, which means it is measuring the rest of this agenda.
- Ask 5
Career and technical training aimed at real openings
Align high school and technical college programs with the jobs actually open in this region, and make dual credit affordable enough that a working family can use it.
- Ask 6
Count both parents as an education asset
Where a child has two parents willing to show up, the state's default should be that both stay in that child's life. This is the existing Shared Parenting work, stated as what it is, which is child outcome policy.
Why this is the conservative position
Local control, parents first, and money following the student rather than the building. Nothing here asks Pierre to run a classroom.
Plank 4 · recidivism
The Path Back
Most people who return to prison in South Dakota did not commit a new crime. They violated a condition of supervision. That is a spending problem, not a crime problem.
Do the time, then earn your way back. The state should not be the thing standing in the doorway.
Start with the number everyone gets wrong. Half of the release cohort came back. But only a minority of that came back for a new offense. The larger share came back on technical violations of supervision.
Never say half of released inmates commit new crimes. It is false, and correcting it is what turns this from a soft on crime topic into a wasted money topic.
South Dakota is spending roughly 737 million dollars on two new prisons. The state already chose the expensive option. The least it can do is stop paying to send people back for paperwork.
And here is the part nobody in Pierre is saying. The state paid for a full outside assessment of its reentry system. Read it and count how many times it mentions fathers, parents, or a man's kids. Family connection is not one of the domains it measures. Most of these men are somebody's dad, most of them are out in under two years, and the one thing most likely to keep a man from going back is not on the list.
What I would file
- Ask 1
Family Connection as a Reentry Outcome Act
Measure it. If the state tracks housing, employment and treatment as reentry outcomes, it should track whether a parent came home to their children. Lowest cost item on this list and the highest odds of working.
- Ask 2
Release With Documents Act
Nobody walks out without an ID, a birth certificate and a Social Security card. The state already advertises that it does this. It should have to keep its own promise.
- Ask 3
Correctional Workforce Alignment Act
Train for jobs that are actually open. The current training list misses the largest openings in the state, and a short commercial driving program would reach more of them than the entire existing trade slate.
- Ask 4
Fair Chance Licensing Implementation and Barrier Sunset
South Dakota already passed a law that overrides most mandatory licensing bars and requires rehabilitation to be considered. Almost nobody in custody is told it exists. Enforce it, tell people about it, and sunset the blanket any-felony triggers that no longer serve a purpose.
- Ask 5
West River Reentry Capacity Act
The state's own report says to expand in Rapid City and rural communities. Its community housing placement contracts are on the other side of the state. Put capacity where the people are.
Already built in this city
The women's prison that opened in Rapid City this July includes drug treatment beds run as a therapeutic community and a mother and infant unit. That is the exact programming model the state's own report says the system lacks, already built in this city. Demand the same standard of the men's facility.
Why this is the conservative position
This is a fiscal argument and a workforce argument. Red states did this first and can be cited as precedent. It costs less than a cell and it fills jobs employers cannot fill.
Show the receipts
Every number, with its source
These are the figures cleared for use on this page. Research still being verified is deliberately left off, because a campaign that invents a number does not deserve to be believed on the ones it did not.
| What it measures | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| SD recidivism, CY2021 release cohort, split outSouth Dakota · CY2021 cohort | 50% back, 15 points new offense, 35 points technical | SD DOC via CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| Daily cost per adult offenderSouth Dakota · FY2025 | $93.26 | SD Department of Corrections |
| Committed spend on two new prisonsSouth Dakota · 2025 to 2026 | roughly $737 million | Canonical: $650M men's Sioux Falls plus $87M women's Rapid City |
| Rapid City women's prison programmingRapid City · opened July 2026 | 96 drug treatment beds plus a 12 bed mother and infant unit | SD Department of Corrections |
| Share of 2025 releases who received no programmingSouth Dakota · 2025 | 35% | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| Share serving two years or lessSouth Dakota · 2026 assessment | about 80% of men, about 95% of women | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| DOC trade training against actual openingsSouth Dakota · 2026 assessment | 8 trades, 2,063 annual openings, about 9% filled | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| Heavy truck driver openings, no DOC training programSouth Dakota · 2026 assessment | 786 a year at $41,590 | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| SD legal provisions restricting rights on convictionSouth Dakota · 2026 assessment | about 450 provisions, 67% employment related, 250 plus triggered by any felony | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| Existing SD fair chance licensing lawSouth Dakota · 2024 | SB 57 (2024), SDCL 36-1C-17 et seq. | South Dakota Codified Law |
| Family connection in the state reentry assessmentSouth Dakota · August 2026 | not one of the four assessed domains | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment, 54 slides, word count verified across the full deck |
| DOC community housing placement contract locationsSouth Dakota · 2026 | Sioux Falls and Yankton only | CSG Justice Center reentry assessment |
| Initiated Measure 28, sales tax on consumables, 2024South Dakota · November 2024 | rejected, roughly 71% to 29% | SD Secretary of State official canvass |
| 2026 general election calendarSouth Dakota · 2026 | absentee opens Sept 18, registration closes Oct 19, election Nov 3 | SD Secretary of State |
| Renter share of occupied housing units, District 32SD State House District 32 · ACS 5-year | 42.2% | US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, table B25003 |
| Renter share of occupied housing units, statewideSouth Dakota · ACS 5-year | 31.4% | US Census Bureau, American Community Survey, table B25003 |
Answer the hard question
What people push back on
Every plank here takes fire, and it should. These are the answers, written the way I would say them at your door instead of the way a consultant would write them.
- A renter's rebate is just a welfare program with a new name.
- It is a refund of a tax the renter already paid. We do this for elderly and disabled homeowners right now and nobody calls that welfare. A refund of your own money is not a benefit, it is a correction.
- Renters do not pay property tax. Landlords do.
- Landlords write the check. Renters fund it. Property tax is an operating cost of the building and it is in the rent, the same way insurance and the water bill are in the rent. If you think property tax does not reach tenants, ask what happens to rent the year taxes go up.
- How do you pay for it?
- Cap general fund growth at population plus inflation and dedicate the difference. That is the whole answer. I am not proposing a new tax to fund tax relief, which is the thing I am objecting to in the first place.
- So you want to repeal property tax relief for homeowners.
- No. Repeal would take relief away from people who already have it and did nothing wrong to get it. Keep the relief. Hold the rate. Extend it to the people paying for it and getting nothing.
- Just repeal the sales tax on groceries then.
- South Dakota voters rejected that in 2024 by a wide margin. I am not going to build a plan on something the electorate just turned down. Hold the rate, cap the spending, extend the relief. That is the version that can actually pass.
- Government cannot set what a job pays.
- Correct, and I am not asking it to. I am asking it to stop making the essentials expensive. Housing supply, childcare licensing, and the tax on everything you buy are all things the state controls.
- Childcare is a family responsibility, not a state one.
- Agreed, and the state is currently making it harder. The rules on who can open an in-home daycare and the cliff that punishes a parent for taking a raise are both state choices. Removing a barrier is not a program.
- If it is too expensive here, move.
- That is what is happening, and it is the problem. When the people who staff the hospitals, the schools and the shops cannot afford to live in the town they serve, the town has a shortage it cannot hire its way out of.
- We already spend plenty on schools. Throwing money at it will not help.
- Then look at what we get for it. We rank near the bottom on teacher pay and we cannot fill classrooms. A vacancy is not a philosophical disagreement, it is a kid without a teacher.
- State funded pre-K is daycare with a nicer name.
- Call it what you want. A child who shows up to kindergarten already behind usually stays behind, and remediation later costs more than starting even. I would rather pay at the front than at the back.
- You are just going to hand money to failing schools.
- I want the money following the student and the decisions made closest to the kid. What I will not do is pretend a school in North Rapid has the same resources as one across town and call the difference a character flaw.
- This is soft on crime.
- Most of the people going back did not commit a new crime. They broke a condition of supervision. I am not asking to release anybody early. I am asking to stop paying full price to re-incarcerate people over paperwork while employers cannot fill jobs.
- Why should I care about people in prison?
- Because you are paying for them either way, and because most of them are out in under two years and coming back to your town. The only question is whether they come home able to work or unable to work.
- Employers should be able to refuse to hire felons.
- They should, and nothing I am proposing changes that. This is about the state's own licensing rules, where a blanket bar stops someone from even being considered. Let the employer decide instead of the statute.
- We just built new prisons. Is that not the answer?
- We chose the expensive option already. Roughly 737 million dollars on two facilities. If we are going to spend like that, we should at least stop refilling the beds with people who missed an appointment.