Director's Notes We’ve been at work this summer on some exciting ideas. In addition to the excellent discussions during the recent policy committees, we will soon be meeting with the county government groups on ways we can work together during the legislative session, perhaps even bringing some joint legislation; and we’ve been working to try to put together some economic development tools that would allow cities to be less reliant on Tax Increment Financing Districts. It is no surprise, but the place everything falls apart is on the issue of funding. There seems to be broad agreement on issues – major problems are infrastructure, housing, and workforce. None can be solved without additional funding. Additional sales tax authority for municipalities could help with many of the problems, but we have a significant number of our members who need other tools – the sales tax is most useful in cities with strong retail development. We need tools that will help all of our cities – which in turn helps the state.
affect our ability to have the legislature address the longstanding municipal problems with funding infrastructure. The other committee is the legislative summer study of county government. Again, answers to county issues will most likely affect our ability to get answers to our own. At some point, municipalities are going to have to stop taking the back seat and finally get some relief from the legislature. We don’t ask the state for funding, we ask them to step out of our way. As the topics develop, and summer studies turn into prelegislative items, we will keep you posted – but it is already promising to be a very interesting 2016 legislative session. Until next month, remember we are always available at 1-800-658-3633 or yvonne@sdmunicipalleague.org. Yvonne Taylor Executive Director
Some of the ideas involve getting the State more involved in funding economic development. While the entire state benefits from the growth in our cities, city residents are paying the tab. There needs to be some buy in at the state level for economic development projects at the local level. We are closely watching two State-level committees that are at work this summer. The first is the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on education. The direction that group takes will
ARENS ENGINEERING municipal engineering water & wastewater engineering storm drainage - municipal streets Vernon Arens, PE 230 Capitol St. j Yankton, SD j 57078 605-665-2002 j Fax 605-260-2140 arenseng@iw.net
4
SOUTH DAKOTA MUNICIPALITIES
