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SB 53: Daugaard Seeks Immediate $500K for Questionable EcDev Programs

Governor Dennis Daugaard says that two programs of the Governor's Office of Economic Development need money right now. Senate Bill 53 asks for an immediate infusion of $500,000 into the New South Dakotans and Dakota Roots programs.

New South Dakotans is the recruitment initiative that really crapped out over the last couple years, delivering less than a tenth of the recruits Governor Daugaard and his favored private contractor promised. Dakota Roots is the "Come on home!" that rents space in the Mall of America making less-than-effective pitches to Minnesotans to trade good public services and better wages for South Dakota's crony capitalist oligarchy.

Maybe this request is a sign that business is picking up for these programs. And hey, what's another $500,000? The state casually throws money like that away all the time. If the Governor is sharp, he might even be able to fund this program by getting Joop Bollen and SDRC Inc. to repay us for that diverted Future Fund grant....

13 Comments

  1. Rick 2014.01.14

    These programs are worthless. Daugaard needs to stop advocating the failed, brainless Rounds agenda and do his own thing. A new summit on South Dakota's best economic development practices is needed, and maybe that's something the Democrats can do in lieu of no leadership or direction coming from the Statehouse.

  2. Kathy 2014.01.14

    Why can't the state invest in the people who already live here? Start some type of apprenticeship program or take that $500K to help people go back to school who may have learned skills on the job but don't have a degree or for someone who wants to get, say, a certificate in welding but no employer wants to train on the job. My husband wants to find another job. He has skills, but no degree. Everything he knows about web development he learned by doing it himself and building websites for friends. But that doesn't seem to be enough. It seems that the solution is quite simple. Give someone like my husband and apprenticeship or pay for them to go to school to get the degree and there you go.

  3. Jana 2014.01.14

    For some reason I think this is just another feel good item for his next campaign. Hopefully this will be debated in Pierre and examined by the media.

  4. interested party 2014.01.14

    What happened to the spur from the Mickelson Trail to Rount Mushmore that DD promised?

  5. rollin potter 2014.01.14

    By the way!!!!!!! Is JOOP still in America???????

  6. Lanny V Stricherz 2014.01.14

    Kathy, You are way more than 100% correct. Any economic development money the State has to spend should be spend on South Dakotans. It is just like I have posted in the past about the foreign polluting CAFO dairy operations that were instigated under the Rounds administration through advertisements in European magazines. They got 10 of the big water users and land and water polluters to help out the dairy industry on the I-29 corridor. They could have just as easily gotten 100 young dairy farmers started with smaller, less polluting herds with local people, but did not want to invest the time and effort that would have been necessary to make such a project work. Put the money toward educating South Dakotans for the South Dakota jobs, not recruiting out of staters or foreign nationals.

  7. Roger Cornelius 2014.01.14

    If at first you don't succeed, spend spend again!

    Sounds like a good campaign slogan.

  8. bret clanton 2014.01.14

    Joop Bollen is under travel restrictions and cannot leave the country in regards to the current federal investigation of eb5

  9. rollin potter 2014.01.14

    thank you bret, just wondering!!!!

  10. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.01.14

    (Bret, really?! Where'd you hear that?)

  11. bret clanton 2014.01.14

    I was told that by an employee of the SD Dept of Ag who has in the past worked with the eb5 program..... fairly reliable info I think....don't quote me...:)

  12. Sid 2014.01.14

    Fascinating!

  13. caheidelberger Post author | 2014.01.14

    Bret, tell your source to call me!

Comments are closed.