By John Hult
SD Searchlight
Full-throated support from South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden may not be enough to change the minds of skeptical lawmakers on a controversial plan to build an $825 million, 1,500-bed men’s prison south of Sioux Falls.
Less than two weeks after Rhoden declared that “failure is not an option” for the project, the state House of Representatives first knocked down an effort to launch its construction, then twice said no to an alternative plan that would’ve pumped $142 million more into a savings account they set up three years ago to pay for it.
The second rejection came Monday, Feb. 24 when an attempt to reconsider the legislation failed due to a lawmaker’s mistake. Rep. Roger DeGroot, R-Brookings, said he voted against the reconsideration motion in error. The motion failed on a tie vote of 35-35.
“I’m for the prison,” DeGroot said later via text.
Had DeGroot voted his intentions, House floor talk could have resumed Monday on the legislation, House Bill 1025.
Rep. Brian Mulder, R-Sioux Falls, voted against adding money to the prison fund on Friday, but voted for reopening debate on the idea Monday.
Yet Mulder told Searchlight he hadn’t changed his mind on the bill. Instead, he wrote in a text, he’d wanted Howard Republican Rep. Tim Reisch, a former Department of Corrections secretary and vocal backer of the new prison, to have an opportunity to cast a vote. Reisch missed Friday’s vote for a funeral.
“If any representative would miss something that is in their area of expertise, I would offer that same opportunity to them that I was offering to Rep. Reisch,” Mulder wrote. “But I was still a no on the bill as written, as I have several concerns about the plan that is being brought forward.”
HB 1025 was originally written to provide the last $182 million needed to build the prison. It also would’ve let the DOC tap into the more than $600 million now held in an incarceration construction fund, built up over the past few years by previous votes to fill it and interest earned.
Lawmakers can move money into the fund with a simple majority, but can’t appropriate money to spend unless two-thirds of them agree to do so.
On Friday, Feb. 21 the House accepted an amendment from Sioux Falls Republican Jack Kolbeck that stripped the bill down to do one thing: Put $142 million into the prison fund, without approving construction, to keep saving money and keep the conversation going. The amended bill failed 34-35 Friday afternoon, while Reisch was missing.
Monday’s move to reconsider that vote with Reisch in attendance came after a weekend during which supporters sought to sway their fellow lawmakers on the merits of saving money for prisons – regardless of where they’re located or how big they might be.
Rep. Will Mortenson, R-Fort Pierre, told South Dakota Searchlight after the vote on Friday that he felt like his fellow lawmakers may have been voting against the $825 million prison plan, not necessarily the idea of saving money to deal with demonstrable overcrowding across the system.
The hope, Mortenson said, was to work on changing minds.
Sioux Falls Republican Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt moved for reconsideration on the House floor Monday.
“The weekend should’ve given some people time to get some accurate information on what we are voting on,” Rehfeldt said.
Reisch voted as expected, but DeGroot’s erroneous no vote meant the reconsideration move still came up short.
Rhoden’s office sent a statement similar to the one offered after the Friday vote.
“We look forward to continuing the conversation and will address next steps at the appropriate time,” wrote Josie Harms, Rhoden’s spokeswoman.
There are legislative maneuvers that could revive HB 1025 again. Lawmakers could use an empty “vehicle bill,” meaning a bill with a generic title and text frequently used for last-minute proposals, to bring it back. Assuming DeGroot’s continued support and Mulder’s commitment to his colleague’s right to be heard, that would give the bill to bank more prison cash another shot.
Even if that happens – and enough lawmakers change their minds to endorse the idea in both the House and Senate – the odds aren’t great that the governor’s preferred prison plan will earn the supermajority it needs, lawmakers said Monday.
“Unless they perform political magic to bring this back and get two-thirds support in both houses, this thing is dead,” said Sen. Kevin Jensen, R-Canton, who represents landowners near the farmland selected as a prison site, located about 15 miles south of Sioux Falls in Lincoln County.
Jensen’s comments came Monday morning, as a Senate panel advanced his bill to create an incarceration task force.
The envisioned group’s charge: to study overcrowding across South Dakota’s aging prison properties, what the state should build to address it, and how a new prison or prisons might serve to reduce the state’s rate of repeat offenses.
The executive branch came out against Jensen’s task force bill, Senate Bill 124, on Monday morning in the Senate State Affairs Committee.
Brittni Skipper, finance director for the DOC, told the panel that the state had already done its homework. Skipper pointed to a commissioned facility report from Nebraska’s DLR Group, which listed a 1,372-bed men’s prison as a top recommendation. The 1881-built state penitentiary it would replace is overcrowded and inefficient, the consultants concluded.
South Dakota Sen. Kevin Jensen, R-Canton, participates in a Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting on Jan. 22, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
South Dakota Sen. Kevin Jensen, R-Canton, participates in a Senate Health and Human Services Committee meeting on Jan. 22, 2025. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
The Legislature already convened a task force in 2022, she said, and endorsed a new women’s prison and the men’s prison project.
Construction of the women’s prison is underway in Rapid City; preparatory legwork is done for the men’s prison.
“The provisions outlined in Senate Bill 124 have already been thoroughly examined by the Legislature,” Skipper said. “The design for the new facility is complete. All utilities are contracted, and site preparation has already begun. These efforts were all authorized by the Legislature.”
She also reminded the committee that the $825 million price is only guaranteed until March 31.
Jensen disputed the claim on the prior task force’s certainty. The task force was “mostly lawmakers,” Jensen said, not the more expansive stakeholder group his bill would create. SB 124 would have four lawmakers, two Governor’s Office representatives, two current or former wardens and representatives from the state court system.
“The incarceration pipeline starts at the arrest, and then goes all the way through adjudication and incarceration,” Jensen said. “There’s so many more players that really need to be at the table.”
He also rejected the idea that the 2022 task force endorsed an $825 million prison. The DLR report recommends 17 projects, including new facilities and upgrades to existing ones, he said. The same report also noted that, while not ideal, a smaller tract of land near Sioux Falls known as West Farm, which the DOC already owns and uses for juveniles, could serve as a site for a men’s prison.
The report put the price tag for a new men’s prison at less than $400 million. The task force, Jensen said, endorsed the two prisons because lawmakers “didn’t want to spend” what it would take to do everything.
Sen. Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre, pointed out that the lower price tag for the men’s prison wasn’t solid, but an “engineer’s estimate,” calling Skipper back up to confirm as much.
Sen. Chris Karr, R-Sioux Falls, had a different question for her: What’s the state’s position on its options now that it’s clear the project doesn’t have two-thirds support?
“We would keep pushing for the prison as it’s designed,” Skipper replied.
Karr said he appreciated the honesty, but he has doubts about that approach.
“So we’re just going to wait, then come back to this same group of people, have this same discussion, and expect a different outcome?” Karr said.
He moved to pass the task force bill. It passed 5-4.
Jensen didn’t succeed on a companion bill, Senate Bill 204, which was also up for debate in the committee Monday morning. It sought to stop the DOC from using any more of the $62 million lawmakers gave the agency during previous sessions to spend on prep work for the prison.
Ryan Brunner, a policy adviser with Rhoden’s office, said there are bills to pay for contracts signed on the assumption the prison would be built as planned. The money used to sign them did earn a two-thirds vote.
A blanket stop work order from the Legislature would keep the state from writing checks for its part in a substation and water main to serve the facility, Brunner said.
The state invested in those projects with a utility provider and rural water system, which Brunner said had each planned the upgrades to serve both the area’s residents and the new prison.
Jensen said he was willing to amend the bill to make sure the state doesn’t “stiff anybody,” but argued that lawmakers need reassurance that the DOC isn’t moving farther than it should on a project they didn’t agree to.
The funding shutoff bill failed 4-5. The decisive vote came from Sen. Liz Larson, D-Sioux Falls, who voted against it after voting for the task force bill.
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