Some members of the Joint Appropriations Committee have concerns with how the state insures its buildings. The state self-insures many of its buildings and lawmakers question what would happen if one of those were destroyed.
Bureau of Finance and Management Commissioner Jason Dilges says the Board of Regents insures its buildings, plus any buildings with outstanding bonds are also insured. That leaves about 40 percent of state buildings uninsured, including the capitol complex. Senator Jim White shares his concerns.
“I guess I wasn’t aware that we weren’t insured, this is something that just came up. You call it self-insured, I call it an unfunded liability,” White says.
White says it would be a tough situation to have to find a budget to take money out of to replace an uninsured building, if it ever came to that. Representative Dick Werner doesn’t think South Dakotans would appreciate having to cover those costs.
“I would hate to be sitting here and we have a mass of buildings get wiped out for some catastrophic event and have to answer to the taxpayers as to why we didn’t limit that liability. I think that’s very prudent point so I would encourage us setting that up,” Werner says.
Commissioner Dilges says for 125 years the state has been fine self-insuring, but wants to make sure legislators are comfortable holding the purse strings if something were to ever happen. Lawmakers want to look into potential plans.