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Bill SB 167 defeated by the Senate, but it’s not over
Greetings from Pierre! Well, it was a tough week at the capital this week. SB 167, the bill to cap property valuation for tax purposes (started out at HB 1040), was heard in the Senate Taxation committee. The bill passed out of committee but had opposition from 17 highly paid lobbyists more interested in the cause they were hired to represent than the homeowners. To our surprise, SB 167 was heard on the floor of the Senate the very next day. This was an unprecedented move. I’ve been told by other long-term legislators that to their knowledge, a bill hasn’t passed out of committee at 11:45 on a Wednesday and be heard on the floor of the Senate at 1:00 pm the next day. I can only assume that it was scheduled so quickly to be heard on the Senate floor so that homeowners wouldn’t have the time to react, make calls, send emails or come to the capital in support of the bill. SB 167 was defeated on the Senate Floor by a vote of 11 to 20… 7 votes short! But we are looking at other options. It isn’t over yet!
This week I will be presenting HB 1208 to the House Taxation committee. This bill, if passed would correct the language in HB 1325. HB 1325 was a bill that had been hoghoused from HB 1039 in 2021, a bill I was the prime sponsor for that would allow class IV noncrop-grassland to remain grassland. Before the end of session, the Department of Revenue, Retailers and other lobbyists met with legislators and hoghoused HB 1039 into HB 1325. When you hoghouse a bill, you take the words from a defeated bill and put it into a vehicle bill that has a similar title. I was not ranchers telling me that their assessor wouldn’t work with them to change their soils type to class IV as stated in the bill. That’s when I discovered that when the bill was hoghoused, only one word was changed throughout the bill. That word was “shall” to “may”.
I have had numerous conversations with representatives from the Department of Revenue who finally told me that the Department was not going to require their assessors to change the soil type class. That they “may” change it, it is up to their discretion. “Shall” is an immediate directive that cannot be deviated from. I believe that by changing “shall” to “may” it has created an unequal taxation of similar soil types from county to county, based on the discretion of the assessor. As an example, one rancher has land in both Meade and Butte counties. The Meade assessor worked with him and reclassified a number of his acres that met the criteria of class IV soil. The assessor in Butte County refuses to work with him on reclassifying qualified acres to class IV soil type.
In the Constitution of South Dakota, Article XI section 2, Classification of property for taxation states that, “Taxes SHALL be uniform on all property of the same class.” In other words, the county assessor should not have the authority nor the latitude, according to the SD Constitution to be able to make the choice not to reclassify land to Class IV soil type, when the criteria for such a reclassification can be met. The willingness of the assessor, or lack thereof should not play into the law.
HB 1208 could be called a cleanup bill. It simply is changing the word “may” back to “shall” throughout the bill. All other criteria set forth in HB 1325 remains the same. I will keep you posted on our progress.
Thank you for your support. As always, it is my honor to be your voice in Pierre!