Fund used for 'Freedom Works Here' ad campaign again in lawmakers' crosshairs

After proposed cut falls short, legislators make another run at exerting some control of Future Fund

(Joe Sneve/The Dakota Scout)

PIERRE — The old saying that no bill is dead at the South Dakota State Capitol until the annual legislative session is over has rung true again.

A measure killed in early February that would have cut funding to the state’s primary economic development fund has new life after being pulled from the heap of the Legislature’s dead bills Tuesday. And while cutting what’s known as the Future Fund isn’t likely to happen, the new iteration of Senate Bill 208 calls for more oversight over the Governor’s Office of Economic Development use of what critics characterize as a slush fund.

“This is a good attempt to respond to a concern that is out there,” Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck said before the Senate’s Commerce and Energy Committee voted to send the revised Legislation to the Senate floor with a do pass recommendation Tuesday morning.

SB 208 now proposes requiring GOED to produce a quarterly report for the Legislature’s budget-setting committee outlining how the Future Fund is spent, including the purpose of expenditures, metrics used to justify use of the dollars and the economic impact of Future Fund spending allocations like jobs created, filled or retained — if any.

RELATED: Gov. Kristi Noem's GOED commissioner out after less than a year