Preliminary Results of the Garretson School District #49-4 Opt Out vote for March 21, 2023
Total Number of Voters: 622.
Yes Votes: 344.
No Votes: 277.
One ballot was set aside as provisional to be checked by the county, but at 7:36 p.m. all votes for the election had been counted by poll workers, and now the results will go to the Garretson School Board to be canvassed. The Opt Out has passed.
Preliminary Opt Out Vote Results
Most Property Assessments have doubled since 2017
by Carrie Moritz, Gazette
It's no secret that housing prices in the area have gone stratospheric since 2020, and that Garretson has been near the top of the list in housing prices for many years. And this is no more realized than each February 15-March 1, when property tax assessments arrive in homeowners' mailboxes.
Many homes in the Garretson area have doubled in value since 2017, the last year listed on the Minnehaha County Equalization website. This has impacted assessment rates, making for a higher tax cost to property owners.
Those assessments can be challenged. Equalization meetings are held each spring, where property owners can ask for a reduced amount on the assessed rate of their home. They can often receive a recommendation from the town council or township board to have those rates reduced, though it's on a case-by-case basis and is somewhat subjective. If those owners do not agree with the council or board's recommendation, they can appeal with the county directly to seek an assessment closer to the perceived value of their home.
According to the Minnehaha County Equalization office, assessments are based off appraisals for homes, using standardized procedures in a mass format each year. Since the appraisals work off of recent sales of similar properties, the increase in home sale prices have severely impacted assessments. Property improvements and building costs impact those prices, too.
While the assessors at the equalization office don't set taxes, they are responsible for fairly setting property values, according to the equalization director, Chris Lilla. In 2022 with the Minnehaha County Commission, he blamed the hot sales market for increases in assessments.
However, the increase in interest rates over the past year have cooled that market off, something councilor Dave Bonte pointed out at the equalization meeting held by the Garretson City Council on Monday. The interest rate has made the higher-value homes, such as those sold over $500,000 in the past year, much less attractive as buyers find they have a set amount they can afford to pay each month.
This is unfortunate, said Bonte, as assessed values for 2023 have appeared to be higher than the actual purchase price a seller could get for their home. And it is unlikely that residents would see a reduction in those assessed values for 2024.
The Gazette took a random sampling of different addresses in Garretson to see what in-town homes were assessed at.
One home in central Garretson on Center Avenue that was valued at $59,500 in 2017, is now valued at $122,400. Another central Garretson home on 4th Street was assessed at $140,354 in 2017; this year it was $258,800. On the south end of town, a home on Leslie Drive was assessed for $232,793 in 2017. Five years later, it was $366,500, and this year, it was assessed for $441,800.
This means that tax assessments in Garretson have been in the double digits for most property owners, with the average increase for 2023 at 14% and 2022 at 18%.
The Equalization office attempted to keep the increase for this year between 10-20% for Garretson, according to City Finance Officer Paetyn Dreckman.
For the home on Leslie Drive, it was a 31.3% increase in valuation from 2022 to 2023.
Though the deadline for most homeowners to file for a reduction has passed, it is important to note that the full cost of property taxes for homeowners may not be as substantially affected.
A property valuation is relied upon by the auditor to determine the taxable value, and the total county budget determines how much cost burden is applied.
For instance, the house on Center Avenue paid $1,243.40 in property taxes in 2019. In 2022, property taxes were $1,473.86, making for an increase of $230.46, or 18%, despite an assessed value difference of $49,566. The house on Leslie saw an increase of $854.40, or 21.6% from 2019 to 2022.
However, it is important for property owners to keep an eye on their future assessments, ensuring that the county isn't over-valuing your property. Any homeowner who feels they need a new assessment can apply to have the equalization office survey their property at any time, even if the change in property values won't take effect until the next year.
There are options for those who are on fixed incomes and having difficulty making their property tax payments, including an assessment freeze for those aged 65 and older or those who are disabled. To qualify, an owner must be a South Dakota resident for the past 200 days in a single-family dwelling and must meet the annual income and property value requirements. Applications for the program are due to the county treasurer's office by April 1 of each year. Veterans may also qualify for property tax reductions or exemptions. To learn more about available programming, interested applicants can visit their local county treasurer's office or head to https://dor.sd.gov/individuals/taxes/property-tax/relief-programs/.
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Five citizens address county before letter sent to Public Utilities Commission
By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – This week, five local residents took issue with a letter Minnehaha County Commissioners wrote for the South Dakota PUC regarding the proposed Navigator CO2 pipeline to pass through 28 miles of Minnehaha County.
While only five spoke at this meeting, they encompassed a good deal of the comments members of the commission have heard in the past from many other county residents.
The matter of this letter was first brought up last month, but at the suggestion of Commissioner Joe Kippley, the item was deferred so more specific language could be added.
In the newest draft that commissioners voted on, the letter states that the commission “remains concerned about carbon dioxide transmission pipelines,” and it called for more training of emergency responders, along with using language that asked the PUC to hold Navigator “accountable to its assessment of public safety issues, and its own role in mitigating those issues,” adding “we also reserve the right as a county to regulate aspects of the pipeline consistent with state and federal laws.”
The letter also stated that the county was asking for “appropriate bonding or other ‘exit strategy’ elements should the pipeline cease operation.”
However, those in the audience, did not think the language went far enough in looking at issues concerning the pipeline.
They specifically pointed out that there was no longer any mention of the PUC allowing Navigator to use eminent domain in confiscating individual’s land.
Commissioner Jen Bleyenberg also echoed those sentiments and said that she thought the new letter’s wording was “too mild” in its approach.
Kippley said it was worded as “one government entity talking to another government entity.”
But he also emphasized how it stated that Minnehaha County was “reserving the rights” to act, within its scope.
Commissioner Dean Karsky addressed the eminent domain issue and said that issue was not within the county’s purview to act upon.
The motion to approve the letter was made by Kippley and it was passed on a 4 to 1 vote.
Bleyenberg was the sole “no” vote against the letter.
The next meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 28, on the third floor of the Minnehaha County Administration Building in Sioux Falls.
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Noem signs $7.4 billion budget despite previous threats
Noem signs $7.4 billion budget despite previous threats" title="Noem signs $7.4 billion budget despite previous threats" />
By: Makenzie Huber SD Searchlight
Gov. Kristi Noem signed the state’s fiscal year 2024 budget into law Monday, providing for increased funding to the “Big Three” state obligations and 100% tuition coverage for National Guard members, among other funding decisions.
Noem had made veiled threats in recent weeks to veto the budget because legislators chose to pursue a different tax cut than the one she promised South Dakota voters during her reelection campaign. The Legislature adopted a temporary reduction in the overall state sales tax rate, rather than Noem’s proposed repeal of the state sales tax on food.
In a letter to legislators about her approval of the budget, Noem did not mention the sales-tax reduction bill, which she still has under consideration with less than a week until legislators return to Pierre for consideration of her vetoes.
But Noem’s letter did express skepticism about the sustainability of the spending levels that legislators adopted.
Noem’s recommended budget would have increased funding for the “Big Three” — education, state employees and Medicaid providers — by 5% for education and state employees, while increasing reimbursement rates for some Medicaid providers to 90% of their costs.
Instead, legislators increased funding by 7% for education and state employees, and set a 100% reimbursement rate for community support providers that heavily rely on government funding, such as nursing homes. Other Medicaid providers, such as hospitals, are set to receive a 5% increase.
“I’ve put significantly more funding into our reserves in recent years,” Noem said in her letter. “Only time will tell if it was a wise decision to spend these additional dollars.”
The budget for the 2024 fiscal year includes $7.4 billion in total spending, up 8.8% from the last legislative session’s fiscal year 2023 budget.
Noem added that the staggered increases in funding for the “Big Three” – rather than what she described as “a tradition of funding equal inflationary increases” – set a “bad precedent” because one or more of the groups could be “left behind” in future budgets.
The budget also:
- Provides 100% tuition assistance for National Guard members to attend technical colleges and public universities.
- Freezes tuition at South Dakota public universities and technical colleges.
- Allocates $11.4 million for future Medicaid expansion costs.
“I appreciate the Legislature for recognizing that it should fund my administration’s priorities to maximize freedom and liberty for the people of the state,” Noem said in a written statement.
While the Legislature did pass some of Noem’s budget recommendations, lawmakers did not support much of Noem’s “Stronger Families” initiative, which unsuccessfully proposed creating a 100% paid family leave program for state employees that private businesses could also buy into, creating scholarship vouchers for children in foster care, and eliminating the state sales tax on groceries.
Legislators passed instead an overall reduction in state sales taxes from 4.5% to 4.2% with a sunset date in 2027. In response, Noem repeatedly threatened to withhold support for the budget, without using the word “veto.”
“I still believe that the best budget option for our state’s future is the one that I presented in December, including the elimination of the sales tax on groceries,” Noem wrote in a press release earlier this month. “And in the coming weeks, I will have to decide whether the budget that has been presented to me is worthy of my signature.”
When asked what Noem’s signature on the budget means for the tax cut bill, spokesman Ian Fury told South Dakota Searchlight that Noem’s letter “speaks for itself.”
Addendum: Just before press time, it was announced that Governor Noem had signed the tax cut measure.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence.
Fourth Grade Wax Museum a big hit among parents, grandparents, classmates
On Wednesday, March 15, Garretson Elementary 4th graders held their annual wax museum exhibit, portraying historical figures such as Rosa Parks, Stan Lee, Leif Erikson, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Henry Ford, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sally Ride, and Jane Goodall.
The museum was a big hit among parents, grandparents, and classmates, who were all invited to hear students speak while in the character of the historical person.
“This project connected reading & writing with social studies in a creative activity that strengthened their research, writing, and speaking skills.” said teacher Liz Etrheim, who began the project with co-teacher Lauren Stoterau when she moved from the Tea School District. Though it’s a lot of work, she admits, it’s a wonderful project that incorporates several skills students this age are ready to learn.
“Our focus is to teach the students about proper research online and using books,” she said. “We also teach them how to use subtopics to help them write down their ideas for different categories.”
Over the past two months, students were taught the skills to write an essay with several paragraphs, using transitional words and dates. They had to finish it with a written speech that was 1-2 minutes long.
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SDSU, USD rely heavily on state money and student fees to subsidize Division I athletics
SDSU, USD rely heavily on state money and student fees to subsidize Division I athletics" title="SDSU, USD rely heavily on state money and student fees to subsidize Division I athletics" />
Stu Whitney
South Dakota News Watch
As the clock struck zero at the 2012 Summit League basketball finals, South Dakota State University fans stormed the Sioux Falls Arena court to celebrate their men’s team’s first-ever bid to one of America’s most significant sports spectacles, the NCAA Division I tournament.
Coupled with SDSU’s women’s basketball triumph earlier on the same court, the moment seemed to bolster the Brookings school’s decision eight years earlier to leave the familiar confines of the Division II North Central Conference to compete at the highest level of intercollegiate sports.
“It was one of those days,” said SDSU athletic director Justin Sell, “that changed our university.”
Like most everything in the increasingly complex world of college athletics, however, there was more to the story. Besides winning, SDSU sought to keep the athletic program financially viable and less reliant on taxpayer money, university support and student fees.
Two years later, the University of South Dakota in Vermillion announced its own jump to Division I and began a similar journey to depend less on those allocated funds, as they’re known in NCAA circles.
According to a South Dakota News Watch analysis of mandatory NCAA reporting data over the past decade, the Jackrabbits’ Division I reclassification in 2004 has been more successful in that regard:
- SDSU, with an athletic budget of $20 million, draws about 45% of its revenue from allocated funds, according to the most recent data.
- USD’s athletic department is more subsidized, with 66% of its $18.5 million budget coming from government and institutional money and student fees.
Government support refers to general funds disbursed by the South Dakota Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s six public universities. Institutional funds can include money from tuition, tuition waivers and endowments.
USD and SDSU athletic departments scrambling to find revenue
SDSU and USD compete in the Summit League for most sports and are football members of the Missouri Valley Conference along with North Dakota State and the University of North Dakota.
That puts them in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), a lower level than the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which encompasses major-college programs such as Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa.
The so-called Power Five conferences – the Atlantic Coast (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-12 (Pac 12) and Southeastern (SEC) – reap the benefits of billion-dollar television deals and ticket sales. Their allocated funds average is 7%, due mainly to media rights, NCAA and conference distributions and bowl-related revenues that create a “haves and have nots” chasm in college athletics.
That leaves mid-major programs such as SDSU and USD scrambling to find enough money to meet mounting expenses for scholarships, coaches compensation, facilities and travel. Operating revenue such as ticket sales, corporate sponsorship and donor contributions can be a challenge for mid-major athletic programs to generate.
When compared with rivals, the South Dakota schools are not unique, according to the News Watch analysis of NCAA data from 2012-2020 (fiscal year 2021 was disregarded due to COVID-related impacts):
- The average percentage of allocated funds for FCS schools is 71%, which means USD is less subsidized than most schools at their competitive level.
- Other Summit League public schools that sponsor football also rely heavily on allocated funds: North Dakota State (33%), North Dakota (54%) and Western Illinois (72%).
- SDSU reported $4.4 million in ticket revenue in 2020, compared with $960,000 for USD.
- NDSU reported $6.3 million in ticket sales in 2020, while UND had $4.9 million (including Division I hockey) and Western Illinois $900,000.
- Northern Colorado, a former NCC school that reclassified to Division I in 2002, drew 70% of revenue from allocated funds in 2020 and brought in just $339,500 in ticket sales.
USD’s reliance on allocated funds: ‘Time to re-balance?’
USD’s reliance on allocated funds has increased nearly 100%, from $6.58 million in 2012 to $13.08 million in 2020. SDSU went from $7.88 million to $9.9 million during that span, a rise of 27%.
Academic spending at USD increased 23% from 2012-20 ($164.1 to $202.6 million), while SDSU’s spending increased 12% during that span ($163.6 to $183.4 million). Those expenditures include instruction, research, public service, academic support and student services.
On the athletics side, increased funding to meet Division I demands has not produced higher enrollment. In fact, SDSU’s undergraduate enrollment dropped 10.7% from 2012 to 2023, while USD’s dipped 4.6%. Tuition more than doubled at both schools during that span from $114.30 a credit hour to $256.55, a spike of nearly 125%.
Brian Maher, Board of Regents executive director, was asked if the board was concerned about one of the state’s Division I universities being more reliant than the other on public and student subsidies.
“We always have to look at how equitably we are treating like institutions, and we will continue to look at that,” said Maher. “Is there a concern? I would say, always. Are we overly concerned right now? No, but I do think we need to look at making sure the balance is there and, if not, is it time to re-balance? I think we always need to look at that.”
“A lot of schools can’t drive the revenue,” added SDSU’s Sell. “Is one model better than one another, is one good or one bad? I don’t know. They’re just different. Each school philosophically has to figure that out, and ultimately it’s your constituents, students and supporters that need to feel comfortable with that approach.”
Athletic success equals national exposure for USD and SDSU
The Jackrabbits and Coyotes have seen their share of sports success, with SDSU’s football team claiming its first-ever national title this past season and USD’s women’s basketball advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament in 2022.
SDSU won the Summit League women’s basketball tournament in Sioux Falls last week and will compete in the NCAA tournament for the 11th time since making the move to Division I. The Coyotes’ track and field program has produced four NCAA individual pole vault titles.
How has that success translated into meeting the financial demands of fielding competitive teams and creating a rewarding experience for student-athletes and their fans?
USD president Sheila Gestring pointed to renewed efforts to market the school’s sports teams and improve game day experience to boost interest. She also noted that Division I sports can bring exposure to a university that goes beyond turnstile counts.
“There is value involved in getting national exposure,” Gestring told News Watch. “You can’t buy enough marketing to match the free coverage you’re getting when you’re making a march to win the WNIT (Women’s National Invitation Tournament) or get to the Sweet 16, or you have an Olympic silver medalist or Sports Illustrated play of the year. It’s a tremendous way to expose not just your athletic teams to a national audience, but the university in general.”
Gestring spoke those words several days after watching USD’s basketball teams bow out in the first round of the Summit League tournament, the women dealing with the departure of coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who guided the Coyotes to three Summit tourney titles, to West Virginia of the Big 12. The USD football team is coming off a season with three wins and eight losses, reinforcing the notion that selling your school’s Division I vision to donors and fans is easier on the heels of victory.
“There’s a certain amount of revenue that comes with winning, and I think that’s how you fill the gap,” said Maher. “Otherwise, to use a phrase from athletics, ‘You’re just another guy.’”
Alumni and other donor support needed to keep athletic departments afloat
Jim Abbott, who served as USD’s president from 1997-2018, knew that change was inevitable when SDSU joined NDSU in reclassifying to Division I in 2004, leaving the Coyotes on a lower competitive level than their in-state and century-old rival.
Abbott agreed with SDSU leadership at the time – president Peggy Gordon Miller and athletic director Fred Oien – that Division II athletics had become watered down and that South Dakota, the nation’s last state without a Division I athletic program, would rally around a new era, as suggested in a report by the SDSU-commissioned consulting firm Carr Associates.
“Healthy universities are living organizations that, if they are student-focused and forward-looking, grow over time,” the report said. “Wise universities continue to reaffirm their values but also reach out to new opportunities that present themselves.”
Abbott, however, knew that a surge in athletic scholarships, travel and other investments needed for Division I would take an influx of money from alumni and other donors, and he didn’t see that level of support in Vermillion.
The school’s endowment would grow from $45 million to $258 million during his stint as president. But the USD Foundation was still finding its footing at the time. He was also paying attention to UND, which had similar reservations and was staying in Division II despite NDSU’s move.
“I had quite a few conversations with Peggy Gordon Miller about it,” Abbott told News Watch. “For a while, we were shooting toward moving to Division I at the same time SDSU did, and we were hoping that UND would go along. It didn’t work out that way. In the final analysis, I determined that we didn’t have the foundation support at that time. The support had to be substantial, and it just didn’t come together at that time.”
Students supported fee increases at both universities
But the feeling of inevitability stuck with him, hastened by the deterioration of the NCC, and UND and USD both announced in 2006 that they would transition to Division I in two years.
Abbott knew he had made the right decision after attending the 2008 Division II women’s national championship basketball game between USD and Northern Kentucky in Kearney, Nebraska, a 63-58 loss by the Coyotes that drew a crowd of 3,067.
“It was a national championship, and it was pretty ho-hum,” Abbott said of that final Division II season. “There just wasn’t the enthusiasm generated by it. And by that time all these other schools had gone Division I, and it was pretty clear that it made sense for us long-term.”
Spikes in corporate and donor support, including major investments from Sanford Health, helped USD revamp its athletic facilities. Those included the $73 million Sanford Coyote Sports Center, a 6,000-seat basketball and volleyball arena that opened in 2016, and a $26 million remodel of the DakotaDome football complex.
The enhancements, as well as a $10.5 million project to repair the DakotaDome roof in 2000 that included $4 million in state funds, were bolstered by public and student support.
In 2015, USD students voted to approve a three-year increase in general activity fees (student fees), partly to generate revenue for the athletic department. Student fees went from $38.30 per credit hour in 2015 to $52.70 in 2018, bringing the annual fee to $1,581 for a student taking 30 credit hours. In fiscal year 2023, student fees are $55.30 per credit hour ($1,659) at USD and $50.85 ($1,525.50) at SDSU.
“Every single time our fees were increased because of athletics, our students were solidly behind it, including building a new arena,” Abbott said. “Our students were incredibly supportive.”
Red ink for red seats at University of South Dakota
USD reported $29.4 million in athletics-related debt in its most recent NCAA report, tied to bond service for the Sanford Coyote Sports Center and DakotaDome renovation. The basketball arena included $22.7 million in bond proceeds, to be paid off with the Sanford Health donation, corporate sponsorships and facility rental.
Funding for the DakotaDome expansion included $14.5 million in bond proceeds (serviced with private funds), $6.4 million from USD local fund cash and $5.4 from the school’s Higher Education Facilities Fund (HEFF) maintenance and repair allocation, derived from a student tuition surcharge and typically used for academic buildings.
Despite occasional surges, such as when USD’s women’s basketball team won the WNIT championship in 2016 on its old DakotaDome court, gate revenue remains a challenge in Vermillion. The Coyotes reported $960,000 in ticket sales in 2020, which is up from $280,000 in 2012 but accounts for just 2% of athletic department revenue.
For Greg Huckabee, an economics professor who serves on USD’s Board of Athletic Control and regularly attends events on campus, the relative lack of student fan interest is puzzling.
“The students help subsidize athletics with the fees they pay, but we haven’t had real good attendance of students in the past 20 years,” said Huckabee, who arrived at USD in 2003. “I’ve asked students why that is, and they point to a lack of consistent success in sports like football. It’s sort of hard to generate a strong fan base when you don’t have winning programs.”
The Coyotes have advanced to the football postseason twice since making the Division I move, with one playoff victory. SDSU has gone on 12 times while compiling 18 wins, including two championship game appearances.
Huckabee attended college at Gonzaga, a small private university in Spokane, Washington, that achieved national acclaim when its men’s basketball team started making NCAA tournament runs, including two trips to the national finals.
The Jesuit liberal arts college saw its enrollment spike 82 percent – from 4,185 to 7,605 – and its endowment doubled from 1999 to 2013 as the basketball team made 15 consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament.
“What comes first? The chicken or the egg?” asked Huckabee. “I think you have to first generate excitement with a winning team that brings people to the games. Geezers like me, we’re going to go to the games regardless of whether we have a winning team. But students aren’t that way. They’ll go home on weekends rather than sticking around to watch football or basketball. You’ve got to give them reasons to stay.”
Times have changed: Bison minivan vs. Jackrabbit cooler of beer
Dana Dykhouse played defensive tackle for SDSU in the late 1970s, when NDSU ruled the Upper Midwest in football and Division I athletics seemed worlds away from the facilities and fan experience in Brookings.
When Dykhouse, now CEO of First Premier Bank, became a prominent booster for the Jackrabbits several decades later, he believed that major donors and corporate partners were the path to a more polished collegiate experience.
“I remember attending an athletic scholarship banquet up in Fargo, where the top auction item was a minivan totally decked out with Bison gear,” said Dykhouse. “(SDSU’s) top item that year was a cooler filled with beer. Back then we raised about $50,000 with our scholarship auction and now we bring in over $1 million in one night.”
SDSU had an athletic budget of $4.8 million in fiscal year 2004, on the cusp of its transition process. The school pushed that to $12.2 million by 2010, the year after Sell arrived as athletic director, with 60% coming from allocated funds (state/university funds and student fees). The 2022 budget was $25.6 million, and the percentage of allocated funds was down to 48%.
“We made a commitment to try to figure out how to grow our budget but do it with donors, ticket sales and corporate sponsors, and really try to drive that revenue,” said Sell.
Donor support more important after Division I move
But there’s a limit to how much private money should be used, SDSU president Barry Dunn told News Watch.
Finding the right balance between institutional and donor support has been of particular interest to Dunn, who was hired in 2016 and chaired the search committee that hired Summit League commissioner Josh Fenton in 2021. Dunn also serves on the Summit League’s finance committee.
“I tackled this when I became president,” he said. “I looked at the trends, and at SDSU, counter to a lot of mid-majors, we were becoming more and more reliant on booster support, corporate and ticket revenue. And in a lot of ways that’s great, but I didn’t want to give up institutional control. We settled on a goal of around 40% (allocated funds), and I think that’s very healthy. It’s also very different than USD and a lot of other schools in our conferences who receive support of 65-70% or even higher. But with our success we’ve been able to get that down.”
A major priority was upgrading SDSU’s athletic facilities largely with private money rather than having to rely on institutional funds or student fees.
Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium, a $65 million football facility that seats 19,340, opened in 2016, with $36 million financed by bonds and $27 million coming from donations, including $10 million from First Premier founder Denny Sanford and $2.5 million from Dykhouse.
Dykhouse and Sanford had earlier donated $6 million for the Dykhouse Student-Athlete Center, which includes offices, meeting rooms, locker rooms and weight training. Sanford Health donated another $10 million for an indoor practice facility.
Also underway is a $53 million renovation of Frost Arena, to become First Bank & Trust Arena after a lead gift of $20 million. The project calls for $41.2 million in private donations, $6 million in HEFF funds and $4 million in university funds generated from ticket, sponsorship and broadcast rights.
SDSU listed $28.3 million in athletics-related debt on its most recent NCAA report, tied to bonding for the football stadium. Annual lease payments of $2.6 million are made primarily from revenue from suites and other premium seating at the stadium.
Donor money, not student funds being used at SDSU
“There is no student money in Dykhouse Stadium, there is no student money in First Bank & Trust Arena, and that is in contrast to how USD has funded their facilities,” said Dunn. He pointed out that student fees, approved by the student association, were used for non-athletic department facility upgrades at SDSU such as the Miller Wellness Center and University Student Union.
“We want students to be able to go and have their student fees pay for tickets, but you don’t want the students to bear the entire burden of this (athletic) enterprise,” Dunn added. “My predecessors not only made tough decisions by going Division I, but they did the really important work of building relationships and growing that donor base, and of course winning always helps.”
The Jackrabbits have seen Division I momentum play out in major moments, from the men’s first NCAA basketball berth in 2012 to the women making the Sweet 16 in 2019 and ESPN’s College Gameday football show (which averages more than 2 million weekly viewers) coming to Brookings that same year. The football team made history with its first-ever national title this January, with a 45-21 rout of NDSU in Frisco, Texas.
Those successes spark media coverage and campus excitement, but much of the progress occurs behind the scenes. Jackrabbit Club fundraising went from $838,000 in 2013 to $1.8 million in 2022, and an active football alumni group “browbeats” former players to buy season tickets, according to Dykhouse, adding that the group donated $75,000 so the team could have new football helmets.
Premium seat sales at Dykhouse Stadium helped the football team to bring in $3.5 million in ticket sales in 2022, well above men’s basketball ($365,165), women’s basketball ($365,165) and wrestling ($51,859).
“That did not happen overnight,” said Dykhouse, who also noted the Board of Regents’ expanded alcohol policy for campus events.
“We were averaging 5,000 to 6,000 fans a game when we went Division I, and we didn’t go from that to (more than 15,000) in one year. It’s just a hard slog and you have to work at it – athletic department, coaches, alumni, marketing, everybody. If you’re not doing the work today, it’s not going to instantly get better in two years.”
Enrollment has not followed investment in athletic programs
One of the arguments for a university taking its athletic programs to Division I is that playing at a higher level will spark more exposure and brand awareness, resulting in higher enrollment.
That has not been the case for SDSU and USD, where undergraduate enrollments lag behind or remain static from where they were in 2012, despite modest post-COVID increases for 2022-23.
SDSU is currently at 9,816 undergraduate students, down from 10,993 in fiscal year 2012. USD is at 7,132, down from 7,473 in 2012. Total enrollment (including graduate students) is 11,331 at SDSU and 9,856 at USD.
There are many factors that go into enrollment, including efforts by the Board of Regents to freeze tuition rates and maximize student access to federal aid to get more South Dakota high school graduates on campus. But packaging campus enhancements tied to Division I into SDSU/USD recruiting strategies is a priority moving forward.
“We’ve done a fairly poor job of telling our own story and doing our own marketing from a system perspective, and that has trickled into our campuses not getting the marketing they deserve,” Maher said. “We need to really hit on these successes and improve messaging and brand notice across the board.”
With SDSU sponsoring 18 sports with 493 total athletes and USD 17 sports with 448 athletes, the Division I model brings more students to campus, which acts as an enrollment and tuition stimulus regardless of wins and losses.
“Athletics is a contributor to the academic engines on campus because those students are not all on full scholarship and pay tuition and fees,” said USD’s Gestring. “We have over 400 student-athletes, and we privately raise the scholarship dollars, so athletics is contributing to the academic balance sheet. Of course, if we’re going to be in the Division I space, we need to provide the resources necessary for those teams to be successful.”
Schools trying to keep talent from leaving to Power Fives
That’s easier said than done in the tiered system of college sports, where success can easily lead to more lucrative and high-profile opportunities elsewhere.
Basketball coaches Plitzuweit, Amy Williams and Craig Smith at USD and T.J. Otzelberger at SDSU left South Dakota for bigger schools. For athletes, graduate transfer and name, image and likeness (NIL) rules could incentivize more standout players to take the same path.
Sell hopes Congress or new NCAA president Charlie Baker takes action to restrict pay-for-play or transfer policies to make it harder for Power Five schools to poach FCS-level athletes.
But keeping coaches from leaving is a harder sell.
“We try to stress integrity in decision-making, family values, being part of an institution and fan base that cares about you,” said Sell.
“That comes with facility development, budget growth, support for coaches and athletes and offering a chance to be relevant in winning. There are a lot of boxes we can check to make these jobs valuable and fulfilling, so other schools have to come not only with a higher salary but some of those other pieces.”
Sell said that he’s been stopped in airports more often these days when he’s wearing SDSU gear, which he attributes to the Jacks having a larger national profile due to recent breakthroughs.
The fact that Division I success hasn’t sparked an enrollment boom isn’t a huge concern for people like Maher, whose perspective comes from having a son and two daughters who competed as student-athletes at the University of Nebraska.
“I see the benefits,” he said of South Dakota’s ongoing Division I path. “I see it from the standpoint of improving the student experience and having fun. That’s an easy part for all of us to grasp because we see the people in the stands or at a family gathering, gathered around the television watching South Dakota State play on a Sunday afternoon for a national football championship. Some things, when you look at them like that, are easy to see.”
— This article was produced by South Dakota News Watch, a non-profit journalism organization located online at sdnewswatch.org.
Beekeeper says adulterated honey is a factor in plummeting production
Beekeeper says adulterated honey is a factor in plummeting production" title="Beekeeper says adulterated honey is a factor in plummeting production" />
Drought, pesticide use and habitat loss are also problems
By: Joshua Haiar , South Dakota Searchlight
One of the nation’s largest independent honey producers says adulterated products deserve some of the blame for new numbers that reveal a 41 percent drop in South Dakota honey production.
It’s the third straight year of declining production in the state, and the 7.2 million pounds produced last year is South Dakota’s lowest value in records dating to 1987. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released the 2022 numbers on Friday.
Beekeeper Bret Adee, with Adee Honey Farms in Bruce, said drought, pesticide use and habitat loss are all factors. And he said another major culprit is adulterated honey.
“It’s a trend brought on by economics,” Adee said. “The biggest economic factor is we’re having to compete with ‘synthetic,’ or what you would call ‘adulterated’ honey, and it’s not really honey.”
Adulterated honey is diluted with other ingredients, such as corn syrup or rice sugar. Some brands even contain chemically modified sugars, which make the product look like genuine honey when it’s not.
Because adulterated honey is cheaper to produce, those companies can charge a cheaper price at the grocery store – outcompeting genuine honey.
Distinguishing real honey from adulterated honey in the grocery store is difficult, according to Jonathan Lundgren, of Brookings, whose Blue Dasher Farm produces honey. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says honey products that include additional ingredients must list those ingredients on the label. But some honey producers allege there are adulterated products labeled as pure honey.
Lundgren said the best thing a consumer can do is buy locally produced honey from a trusted beekeeper.
“Good news is, there are a lot of them in the state,” Lundgren said.
There were 185,000 honey-producing colonies in South Dakota in 2022, down from a high of about 290,000 in 2015.
The average yield in the state last year was 39 pounds of honey per colony, down 10 pounds from 2021.
The total value of honey produced in South Dakota in 2022 was $18.6 million, down 37% from 2021. The state ranked sixth for honey production in 2022.
The sharply declining numbers in South Dakota contrast with less severe trends nationally.
United States honey production in 2022 totaled 125 million pounds, down 1 percent from 2021. There were 2.67 million U.S. colonies producing honey in 2022, which was also down 1 percent.
Adee said the adulteration of honey is not only harming beekeepers’ livelihoods but is also hurting farmers’ crop yields and deceiving consumers.
“The numbers consistently run from 12 to 40% higher soybean yields if you have bees on the ground,” Adee said. “It’s incidental pollination, and it’s why it’s so valuable to have bees out there. But you can’t do it if you’re competing with fake stuff made from rice sugar.”
Adee said the practice of adulterating honey is not new, and beekeepers have been raising concerns about it for years. He hopes this year’s significant decline in production brings the issue to the forefront.
“We don’t have very good enforcement of our food laws,” he said.
Adee wants to see the government do more to inform consumers and protect beekeepers that produce genuine honey.
Adee said pesticides and habitat loss also affect honey production; in fact, he was featured in a 2017 New York Times article that dove into that issue. Pesticides are harmful to bees, affecting their immune systems, and making them more susceptible to disease and other environmental factors. Bees also rely on a diverse range of flowering plants to gather nectar and pollen, but with increased urbanization and large-scale crop farming, the natural habitats of bees are diminishing.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence.
New law provides 100% tuition coverage for SD National Guard members
New law provides 100% tuition coverage for SD National Guard members" title="New law provides 100% tuition coverage for SD National Guard members" />
By: Makenzie Huber, South Dakota Searchlight
Gov. Kristi Noem signed a bill into law last Thursday that will provide 100% tuition benefits for National Guard members at South Dakota technical colleges and public universities.
The increase from 50% to 100% coverage will benefit the Guard by providing another incentive for recruitment and retention, Noem said.
Noem, whose father served in the National Guard, spoke in front of several Guard members at the Range Road Armory in Rapid City during the signing and shortly before a deployment ceremony for the 216th Fire Fighting Team, which will spend a year in the U.S. European Command area of operations. Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden, who was a guardsman himself, also spoke at the signing.
Noem told attendees the increased benefit is a statement from South Dakota taxpayers that they support the work of the National Guard, citing the emergency efforts during flooding, wildfires or during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They recognize every single day, when there is a tornado or derecho, that it’s National Guard members who come to their communities and that when they need help, you provide it,” Noem said.
She added that discussions to cover tuition costs have been in play since she was elected to the state Legislature in 2006, and she doesn’t expect to ever have to “defend spending these dollars on you.”
Noem’s office put the annual cost of the initiative at $1.9 million during her budget address in December 2022.
South Dakota Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Lyn Waldie, a recruiter, said the initiative is the “single greatest new benefit” he’s seen in his years of service.
“I am excited about the power of possibility that comes with it for those who answer the call to serve our great state and nation,” Waldie said.
Noem legislative review
The increase in tuition coverage for National Guard members was one of several proposals Noem introduced during the 2023 legislative session, which lawmakers concluded earlier this month, except for a day on March 27 to consider vetoes.
Noem had three major initiatives she pushed during the session and announced during her annual Budget Address in December and State of the State address in January: improving the state’s workforce, “securing” South Dakota and expanding her “Stronger Families” initiative.
Noem signed workforce bills that lower the unemployment insurance employer contributions by 0.5% and recognize out-of-state occupational licenses. She also signed a bill that would amend references to the governor and other officials in state statute and the South Dakota Constitution to their titles instead of “he” or “him.”
Noem’s “Securing South Dakota” initiative focused on protecting the agricultural industry and assets in South Dakota. Earlier this week, Noem signed a bill that will make it more difficult to file a nuisance complaint or lawsuit against an agricultural operation. However, a bill that would establish a committee to review foreign ag land purchases failed to garner enough support in the Legislature.
Much of Noem’s focus on her pro-life, “Stronger Families” initiative failed to pass through the Legislature this session. That included cutting the overall sales tax on groceries, creating a 100% paid family leave program for state employees that private businesses could also buy into, and helping children in foster care with scholarship vouchers.
The only initiative that made it through the legislative process was a bill that requires both parents to cover pregnancy costs instead of just the mother.
While Noem pushed for an elimination of the state sales tax on groceries, lawmakers chose instead to temporarily cut the overall state sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% for four years. Lawmakers also exceeded her recommended 5% increase in funding for education, state employees and Medicaid providers.
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. South Dakota Searchlight maintains editorial independence.
Garretson Wrestlers named to Big East All Conference & SDWCA Academic All State
Just before press time this week GHS Assistant Wrestling Coach Jason Bohl informed the Gazette that the following GHS Wrestlers were honored as Big East All Conference Selections: Preston Bohl (1st Team) & Jaden Richter (2nd Team). Also selected for the SDWCA Academic All State were Hunter Abraham and Preston Bohl.
News for 3-23-23
Garretson home prices have increased significantly over the past few years, which has affected property assessments; the preliminary results from the opt out election are in with a 344-277 vote in favor; and the Minnehaha County Commission finalized the letter regarding CO2 pipelines to be sent to the Public Utilities Commission, plus more!
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