Rounds Optimistic About SD’s Recession Recovery
Local News
by
Jenna Mann
last edited on
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The 2010 legislative session began Tuesday afternoon with Governor Rounds’s final State of the State Address.
He used the time to reflect on his time in office. Rounds also used the speech to remind lawmakers just how tight money is in South Dakota.
Since Mike Rounds was elected governor of South Dakota seven years ago, changes have come to the state.
Because of the ongoing recession, balancing the state's budget continues to be a challenge. This year lawmakers have to deal with over $107 million in deficits.
South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds says, "The way to fix our structural deficits is to hold down the ongoing spending as much as we can."
Legislators from both sides of the isle want to take that a step further, by cutting the $32 million shortfall out of the budget.
Sioux Falls Democratic Senator Scott Heidepriem says, "It is a much better approach to take across the board cuts to state government so that we don’t have to pack some of the rainy day funds that we have"
Sioux Falls Republican Senator Dave Knudson says, "I think to cover that deficit, which is where I think the legislature ought to go, is probably going to take a combination of specific program cuts."
While both sides have different ideas about how to fix the budget, they agree this is the year to reduce spending.
Knudson says, "If we don’t make significant progress on cutting that deficit, we're going to be in a terrible, terrible situation."
This year's priority is to keep a growing hole from getting any deeper.
This legislative session is scheduled to last 38 days and neither side anticipates needing more time to finish the budget.