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Bill To Fund County Roads Brought Back To Life

Rep. Caleb Fink

A bill to fund county roads was brought back to life in the South Dakota legislature. Attempts to approve a measure failed earlier this session due to a lack of one-time funding available, but that now changed.

Rep. Caleb Fink explains that one-time funds have been found and asked lawmakers to agree to a hog house amendment, which guts SB 144 and replaces it with the contents from HB 1284 - that creates a road improvement priority fund.

"This amendment puts that bill into this piece of legislation with a $10 million one-time appropriation that will be distributed out to the counties through the formula in the bill."

Rep. Linda Duba says the money found may not even be enough to make a difference.

“I am concerned about us staying we have all this money and we are going to have major impact in 82 thousand miles of road, we need to step back and ask what this money is really doing and are we making this a statement in the press and are we really going to make a huge impact on the roads that were destroyed.”

House Majority Leader Lee Qualm applauds the efforts of state appropriators.

“This is the best thing we’ve done in a while to give back to the people of South Dakota that have entrusted us in their care and I certainly hope we can go green on this and make it happen. Please vote yes.”

Lawmakers approved the hog house amendment, then passing the bill 56 to 11. The Senate disagreed with the amendments and Senator Brock Greenfield told lawmakers now is an inappropriate time to approve buying gravel and asked the body to not concur to the changes in the bill, which the majority agreed too, killing the bill.