BROOKINGS – Members of the South Dakota Board of Regents are keeping an eye on several bills related to their work as the bills progress through the first couple weeks of the new legislative session.
The regents discussed the bills via teleconference last week, when they were informed of several bills that would soon be brought to their respective chamber floors for consideration.
The first mentioned was Senate Bill 17, for the replacement of the SDSU natural resources research and support facility that burned in a January 2016 fire. Approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, it was brought to the Senate floor on Tuesday, where it was approved 34-0.
The build is projected to cost an estimated $350,000 and will largely fulfill the same purpose of the former structure, as equipment storage space. The $112,000 insurance settlement will help cover some of the costs.
Then there was Senate Bill 18, approved by the Joint Appropriations Committee. This bill, also brought before the state Senate on Jan. 24, gives the Board of Regents the go-ahead to begin the designing, construction and renovation of the Stanley J. Marshall Center and its Frost Arena with $15 million appropriated for the multi-phase project. It too was approved by the Senate, 29-5.
On the House’s end, there was House Bill 1008, meant to authorize the Board of Regents to purchase a series of properties for SDSU, including the Pius XII Newman Center along Eighth Street and 10 lots along Seventh Street, south of the married student housing. Those 10 lots are currently private houses.
For the Newman Center land purchase, the bill gives the Board of Regents up to $950,000, and up to $2.13 million to purchase the 10 lots along Seventh Street.
Action on this bill was deferred to another day.
But it was Senate Bill 65 that ate up most of the Board of Regents’ allotted time. This bill outlines the creation of the South Dakota Board of Technical Education to oversee the state’s tech schools, existing as a separate and distinct entity from the Board of Regents.
It also means the revision of some provisions of existing law to accommodate the new board, specifically those parts of law dealing with career and technical education.
“The bill primarily ports over the responsibilities now held by the Board of Education to the new South Dakota Board of Technical Education,” Michael Rush, the executive director and CEO of the Board of Regents, said. “And of course the Board of Regents’ interest was simply to make sure that the bill was clear as to what the new South Dakota Board of Technical Education would be administering, and particularly that there wouldn’t be duplications, overlaps on that sort of thing.”
But several of the board members had concerns about the clarity of some phrases, saying that more precision would be needed to avoid any potential future issues.
The main troublesome provision in question reads: “The director (of the Board of Technical Education) has general control and supervision over all career and technical education in all public secondary schools, public postsecondary institutions not under the control of the Board of Regents and all other career and technical education functions assigned to the director by the secretary of education.”
But as Regent Harvey Jewett asked, “Is everything we do … arguably career training?”
“I’m just worried about in the very first year that these tech schools now have become a constitutionally recognized entity, that we’ll establish practices,” Jewett said.
He then argued that the language in that provision does not necessarily limit the new tech education board’s authority to just high schools given that they can receive additional duties from the state secretary of education.
“The secretary of education can decide that the director assumes control of all registered nursing programs. There’s nothing in this bill that prevents that. And it binds us, the Board of Regents. We are bound by a statute that says all other career and technical education functions assigned to the director by the secretary of education,” he said.
Jewett added that although he doesn’t think this was something done intentionally, the responsibility was on them to better define things like this now, before it’s made law.
According to Guilherme Costa, the general counsel for the Board of Regents, one of the suggestions made before the bill was filed was to strike out that last bit of the provision, stating “… and all other career and technical education functions assigned to the director by the secretary of education,” precisely because of the creation of ambiguity.
“The response we received was the scope of the authority for the secretary of education is limited to K-12, and so there was a difference of opinion as to the ambiguity here,” Costa said.
“Ultimately, I think the reason that last clause remained was because the secretary of education can only assign something to the director that the secretary has authority over, and the secretary does not have authority over the board of regents, and therefore, there was not the same level of concern about that. But I would concur that reading that in a plain language, it certainly could be more clear that the entirety of this section is limited to K-12.”
The bill is scheduled for hearing in the Senate Education Committee today.
Contact Eric Sandbulte at esandbulte@brookingsregister.com.
