Heads up on House Appropriations: Birth to 3 and State Fair Tomorrow

The State House Appropriations Committee has a busy day tomorrow (Wednesday, March 4), taking up a whole slew of newsworthy spending bills. Among the highlights:

1. Supporters of SB 203, a measure to secure funding for the Birth to 3 Connections program, carry their momentum from the Senate to the House. Come on: did anyone think legislators would vote against a thousand toddlers with developmental delays or disabilities?
2. On a completely different moral plane, Huronians and other State Fair boosters take a swing at restoring funding for The Big One with SB 181. The Senate basically punted, amending the subsidy to $1 just to keep the bill alive and leaving it to the House to decide whether the State Fair is worth state dollars. Prime sponsor Senator Tom Hansen's last hope: borrow from Obama and make an economic stimulus argument for keeping that money flowing into his hometown.
   

House Appropriations faces plenty of other important bills tomorrow. The full agenda:

• SB 49: make an appropriation to fund sales tax on food refunds and to declare an emergency.
• SB 50: revise the General Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2009.
• SB 72: make an appropriation to initiate a master of social work degree program in higher education.
• SB 117: appropriate funds to the postsecondary technical institutes for program enhancement.
• SB 164: revise the General Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2009 to fund the South Dakota Opportunity Scholarship.
• SB 181: make an appropriation for the support of the state fair.
• SB 203: make an appropriation for the purposes of funding the Birth to Three Program in the Department of Education and to require a review of the program.
• and maybe SB 36: revise certain drug registration fees and license fees related to health care facilities.

Crunch time indeed!

Mich. Gov. Granholm Schools Rounds on Budget Cuts

Some of us think the cuts proposed by Governor Rounds to the South Dakota state budget go too far. Other commenters have grumbled they don't go far enough to slash the growth in state government that has taken place under Rounds's watch.

I would suggest that Governor Rounds could take a lesson in real Republican budget-cutting from Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm... except she's a Democrat. She's proposing to cut funding for the State Fair, just like Rounds. But there's more... much more. For those of you determined to portray every last Democrat as a big-government Kool-Aid drinker, consider Governor Granholm's list of proposed cuts:

• Cut all elected state officials pay by 10%
  
• Granholm's salary would drop from $177K to $159.3K.
• Michigan legislators' salaries would drop from $79,650 to $71,685.
  
• Collapse sixteen state departments into six.

At the same time, Granholm is watching out for those who are ill-equipped to bear cuts: she is also proposing a tuition freeze at state universities and community colleges and a moratorium on utility shutoffs on folks who can't pay the heat bill [see Mark Hornbeck and Charlie Cain, "State Fair in Jeopardy," Detroit News, 2009.02.02].

More and more it seems if you want Republican values, you've got to send a Democrat to do the job.

Can You Survive a 40% Budget Cut? State Fair Can

Does no one in state government know how to put on his budget war face?

So imagine you're in charge of the South Dakota State Fair. You've just been told the governor wants to axe all of the Fair's state support, 40% of your budget. Just a few months ago, you were making the case that your event requires permanent legislative funding. As the head of this specific program, what's your proper response?

Fight like hell, right? Tell the Legislature the Fair will die without state support, right?

Evidently not if you are Agriculture Secretary Bill Even. Instead of staking out a negotiating position from which he might be able to win back some portion of the $800K the governor wanted to give him last December, Secretary Even has said the Fair will go on, even without a penny of state subsidy.

Bill Even just acted like a novice debate team that hears the Affirmative plan, takes the podium, and says, "O.K. We've got nothing. Do the plan, nothing bad will happen."

Life is not a debate round, but I see nothing wrong with the man in charge of the State Fair taking a bit more aggressive role in being the chief defender of his program. Even though I'd vote to cut the subsidy (remember: other state fairs get along fine without taxpayer support), I still want to hear someone make the opposing case so everyone can weigh the pros and cons in full and make an informed decision.

But if even Secretary Even agrees that the subsidy isn't necessary, well, he's saved us some work. The state just saved $800K. Next issue.

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Update: Oops! Looks like not everyone in the Ag Department is on the same page. Deputy Ag Secretary George Williams tells that Sioux Falls paper, "If the full amount of the funding that was proposed was removed from the fair, the operational dollars would not be there to host a fair - at least similar to anything we've seen.... It would be pretty difficult to host any kind of fair." And don't get Ron Volesky started!

SD Budget Cuts: Yeas and Nays

A common theme in the commentary from legislators and others about the do-over state budget proposal yesterday was that everyone can find something Governor Rounds proposes to cut that we'd rather not cut. Whatever your pet project, you will not hear me say that you should be quiet and be good team player. Even in a budget crisis (are we using that word yet?), in politics, the way to be a team player is to engage in passionate advocacy for your program. For instance, I support the governor's proposal to end the state subsidy for the State Fair. But I suspect Senator Tom Hansen will hear from a lot of his Huron neighbors urging him to fight to save that subsidy. That advocacy, that defense of Huron's interest in keeping that state money flowing into their economy, is perfectly justified. Politics works best when everybody comes to the table and makes their case. Unquestioning conformity and submission produce worse results than vigorous debate and hard-won compromise.

For what it's worth, here's my quick take on some of the cuts proposed:

• State Fair subsidy: Yes. It was a bad idea even when times were good.
  
• School for the Deaf: Can we really serve the needs of these kids by closing the school and diverting resources to outreach? I'll need more numbers on that.
• TCAP: This program give teachers extra pay for extra training and work over the summer. It's better than nothing, but it still enshrines the idea that we pay teachers plenty as it is, and that they don't deserve a penny more unless they jump through more hoops. I don't want to take away an opportunity for teachers to scrape together a few more dollars, but TCAP hasn't been the right approach to establishing better long-term teacher salaries.
• State arts programs: I hear from my friends at the Brookings Arts Council that the Governor would eliminate the state arts council. But do this, and we lose our cut of federal arts money. Why hit ourselves with that double whammy? Make some cuts, but maintain enough of a program to qualify for that federal money and leave the infrastructure in place to expand the program again when the economy rebounds.
• Mosquito control: Um, West Nile, anyone? Instead, let's reverse the increase the governor is proposing for snowmobile-trail grooming (come on: real men don't need a groomed trail).

There's a lot more to read. Stay tuned, and talk to your legislators!

Governor Rounds: "Basics" Include Subsidizing State Fair

I'm trying to do homework while listening to the Governor's budget request on South Dakota Public Radio. It's not working.

Among the budget details: As Governor Rounds declares that he is requesting nothing but the basics for next year's state budget, he asks the Legislature to move the $800,000 state subsidy for the South Dakota State Fair from special appropriations to the base budget.

Evidently we are to conclude that, in Governor Rounds's interpretation, subsidizing the State Fair is a basic, essential part of a bare-bones state budget. And if I recall my numbers properly, the number I just heard the Governor request represents a 6.7% increase from the $750,000 subsidy doled out to the State Fair by the 2008 Legislature.

Get out your meat cleavers: it's going to be an exciting session.

Tourism: When Economy's Tough, Play to the Locals

I'm looking at the numbers for the Sturgis Rally and the State Fair and wondering if I can come with a moral for our summer tourism story. Sturgis saw an 18% drop in rally attendance this year. Of course, that also meant less garbage, fewer parking tickets, and fewer emergency room visits, although our man Perry Groten notes more folks still managed to get themselves arrested for drugs and non-traffic violations. I guess the folks with the irrational inclination to break the law are also more likely to have the irrational inclination to drive across the country to Sturgis on $4/gallon gasoline.

Meanwhile, the State Fair continues to prove it may not need that $750K state subsidy. In the midst of economic turmoil, the State Fair saw 4% more people come through the gates in Huron. Everything was up, really: exhibitors (5%), camping revenue (6%), carnival sales (9%), vendor revenue (11%), FFA entries (14%), livestock exhibits (23%), and grandstand revenues (53%).

I would like to think these numbers prove that we put our economy on a more stable footing when we focus on our own people and resources. When we rely on tourists from other states for our economic viability (as is the case with the Sturgis business model), we run the risk of down years when those folks won't want to make the long drive. Focus on giving folks here in South Dakota some easily accessible family entertainment, and you can turn a profit even when the economy turns sour.

But then I look again at the numbers: even down 18%, the Sturgis rally drew 415,000 visitors, plus a bunch of early vistors who drove Sturgis's July sales tax collections up 18%. The State Fair drew 157,000. The 6,000 or so extra visitors the State Fair drew are swamped by the 90-some thousand who stayed home from Sturgis.

Even if everyone in South Dakota goes staycationing, we still won't be able to make up for the tourism revenue we lose thanks to high energy prices and other economic factors. We may have to look for a better source of local revenue to replace tourism as our second-largest industry.

South Dakota State Fair Seeks Permanent Legislative Funding

...Local Blogger Proposes Alternatives to Tax Subsidy

The Prairie Village Steam Threshing Jamboree just wrapped up, so it must be time for the South Dakota State Fair. It's also time for State Fair Manager Jerome Hertel to contend that the Legislature should make the state subsidy of $750,000 to the fair a permanent line item in the state budget.

Hertel makes the rather odd argument that making the fair subsidy permanent would "relieve some of the skepticism" about the fair. (That's a quote from the AP reporter, not directly from Hertel.) To be fair, the skepticism Hertel has in mind is the skepticism of vendors, who he says can be tough to recruit when funding for the fair is uncertain. Hertel obviously does not have in mind the skepticism of many lawmakers and taxpayers, who wonder why the State Fair can't generate the revenue to support itself.

There is a role for government to support culture and recreation. Heck, even the successful Sioux Empire Fair gets $230,000 from Minnehaha County (if I'm reading the 2008 budget right—see this PDF, page 3, line 524).

But in case Hertel can't convince Pierre to make the State Fair subsidy permanent, here are some alternative funding possibilities:

• Turn the unclaimed property booth into a raffle. Folks can still come and claim their property, but the state can also raffle off any checks or land not claimed by the last day of the fair. Or heck, after the fair, just declare any unclaimed property abandoned and apply it toward next year's Fair budget.
• Put the winners of the new market meat goat show to good use: gourmet sandwiches! Goat-lettuce-tomato brushetta at the Women's Building... mmmm....
• I have a soft spot in my heart for .38 Special, but maybe, just maybe consider recruiting a rock act that has put out more than one disc of new material in the past decade?

Whether you like goats or Golden Oldies, The Big One starts Thursday. Enjoy!

Open the Books -- Pass HB 1233

It's the last week of the Legislature. There's lots to do, and in the mix may be a push to save HB 1233, a bill sponsored by Rep. Hal Wick (R-12/Sioux Falls) and others to create a searchable online database where you and I can look up any and all state financial information, including budget expenditures, state employee pay, tax revenue, federal grants, and bonded indebtedness (see the full list in Section 2 of the bill). The House gave this bill a thumbs up (good call, Russ!), but five Senators -- Knudson, Hanson, McCracken, Heidepriem, and Dempster -- voted to kill it in committee on Wednesday.

KELO reports that the bill's supporters are going to try to revive the bill in the Senate this week. PP shares my hope that they will succeed. For us bloggers in particular, an online state ledger what would be a spectacular resource for research and links to keep folks informed on how Pierre is spending our money. PP notes that the senators who deferred the bill to the 36th day cited concerns about declining revenues, but on the very same day, those same senators voted to pump $768,004 into subsidizing the State Fair (see HB 1179).

I'm spitballing here, but I'm thinking even if we couldn't produce this financial database -- a South Dakota version of the 2006 "Google for Government" act successfully pushed by Senators Obama and Coburn -- with existing staff and equipment by shifting record-keeping to an online database, we could probably take $100K out of that State Fair subsidy, spend it on an ambitious programmer and a couple new servers and have us a workable site by the July 1, 2009, implementation date.

Let's get that information online. It's our money: we have every right to know where it's going. And the Internet is the fastest, easiest, and I would argue cheapest way for the government to let us know how it's spending our money. HB 1233 -- one of the best ideas this session! Bring on the smoke-out!

Take That, Sioux Falls -- Huronians Rejoice at State Fair Sales Surge

South Dakota State Fair boosters can surely shout "We're Still the One!" this morning. AP reports this morning that Department of Revenue Figures show the 2007 State Fair posting a 33% increase in tax revenue generated over the 2006 event [AP, "Retail Sales Drop at State Events," KELOLand.com, 2007.11.16]. If Fair Manager Susan Hayward and her crew in Huron keep posting amazing growth like that, they'll have to change the name from State Fair to State Excellent!

The State Fair's success stands out even more amidst otherwise disappointing numbers for the state's biggest summer events. 2007 Sturgis Rally taxes dropped 1% from last year. The Central States Fair taxes dropped 2%.

The big loser: the Sioux Empire Fair in Sioux Falls, whose tax revenues "plunged" 22%. Ouch! Word of the day for previous posters who have lambasted Sioux Falls for trying to kill the State Fair: schadenfreude.

The other big winner: the Brookings Arts Festival, which posted 10% revenue growth. See? Arts can bring big money to town.

State Fair 2007 Revenues Up

Again, the State Fair folks catch me sleeping. Last year, they didn't release revenue figures until October. This year, within two weeks of Labor Day, the State Fair Board and South Dakota Department of Revenue and Regulation are able to publish the fair's revenues. This speed is surprising, since they apparently had more receipts to count this year:

1. Gross sales were up 22.8% ($934,565.97 for 2007, compared to $760,909.52 in 2006).
   
2. Total tax revenues were up a similar 22.6% ($69,342.66 for 2007, compared to $56,559.16 in 2006). That includes sales tax revenues of $37,382.66 for the state and $18,691.28 for the fair city of Huron (assuming the DRR's figures don't include all those Forestburg melon sales serving hungry fairgoers along the many scenic routes weaving through the Jim River Valley).

Now let's remember that the state subsidized this year's fair to the tune of $750,000 -- even if they didn't go, every South Dakotan paid the State Fair one dollar. We broke even on the cosmic scale, generating $1.25 of sales for every $1 of tax money invested. Looking at it purely from the government perspective, though, we spent $13.26 for every tax dollar we generated.

Are we getting our money's worth? The Rapid City Journal doesn't think so, seeing government handouts that don't produce sufficient statewide return on the investment. South Dakota Magazine sees his dollar-a-year as money well spent, though he urges the Fair to take some lessons from smaller successful fairs like the Turner County Fair and rediscover its rural roots.

The Madville Times looks around at smaller fairs and wonders how they make it without big handouts from Pierre. The profitable Turner County Fair, the oldest fair in the state, draws 60,000 people to Parker, a town of 1,000, and has been a free-gate fair since 1961. It doesn't take $750,000 from Pierre to put on a great event. (The Turner County Fair website is also powered by Linux -- maybe open-source software is the key to running a fair in the black!)

State Fair Numbers Up... and Posted Much Faster

Good news travels fast... especially when state officials want it to. South Dakota State Fair ("We're Still the One!") Manager Susan Hayward is trumpeting a 13.5% increase in attendance at this year's event, from 133,000 in 2006 to 151,000 this time around [AP, "State Fair Reports Larger Attendance," KELOLand.com, 2007.09.06].

The Madville Times is pleased for anyone who can put on a successful show and generate tax revenue and family fun in South Dakota. However, we note with amusement how this year it took just three days for fair personnel to release attendance figures to the press, whereas last year they spent nearly four weeks counting heads and coordinating their spin. Susan Hayward herself declared last year, "The No. 1 reason the attendance figures will not be released is because they are no indication of how well the fair is doing.... [S]ometimes the press relies heavily on the attendance figures as a measuring stick on how the fair is doing." (She said it in the Huron Plainsman, which appears to have deleted the original page from their archives -- darn!) We are pleased that Hayward and the State Fair board have acknowledged the very obvious: attendance numbers are an important indication of the success of an event.

We shall now wait with bated breath for the promised financial figures to see if the state's continuing underwriting of the fair ($750,000 subsidy this year, basically a buck per South Dakotan) paid off.

Update: Read the glowing official press release: "South Dakota State Fair a Huge Success!" -- yes, the exclamation point is in the original. There weren't just more people, but 26% more cattle, 35% more rabbits, and 52% more pigs! Says Hayward, "It is important for a number of reasons to track attendance and exhibits at the fair, but the real measure of success for me was the thousands of families who attended either to exhibit, camp, wander through the buildings, or watch the shows. All those smiling faces are what the fair is really about.”

Just so we're clear, Hayward is saying attendance figures are a valid measuring stick.

Print Media Outperform Broadcast Media

Given that I can't even spell umbrage this morning, I probably have no business calling real journalists to task. I am also loathe to give the sometimes-smut-peddling Sioux Falls newspaper (which I shall quixotically continue not to name even as I grudgingly cite it) props for good journalism. But I offer one comparison that shows the print media still beat the broadcasters:

On KELO last night, Don Jorgensen reported that Congress is giving the State Fair $250,000 to "make improvements to the Beef Complex and the Hippodrome" [Don Jorgensen, "State Fair Gets Federal Money," KELOLand.Com, 2007.07.14]. That money will be in addition to the $750,000 approved by the state legislature to keep the big show afloat this year.

Naturally, I got to wondering which of our Congressional delegation managed to slip the words "Beef Complex" and "Hippodrome" into federal legislation. KELO gave no indication of who was responsible for this high-priority legislation or even in which bill we could find this pork -- er, important infrastructure investment.

Peter Harriman ["Senate Bill Would Give $239M to S.D. Projects," that objectionable Sioux Falls paper that runs smutty advertisements, 2007.06.14] clarifies things this morning. First of all, the federal grant is not a done deal. The money for the State Fair is part of $2.2 million for community development projects that is part of a $239 million Senate Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development bill that cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday and now faces a vote before the full Senate. Senators Johnson and Thune praise the money (even Republicans like federal spending when it comes to their voters). The article says that both Johnson and Thune requested $800,000 for the Children's Home Society, but it does not clarify which of our men in Washington actually wangled the quarter million for Huron.

Still, the Harriman article does a much better job than the Jorgensen report of telling us which legislation might make this money possible. Harriman also gets the facts straight, making clear the money is still working its way through Congress (so don't go splurging on spackle and screws just yet, Susan Hayward!). Jorgenson's report drifts along toward the content promised by its headline and lacks specifics.

All media are prone to style over substance -- we're all shouting for readers' attention. But TV news is perhaps most subject to it, since it can literally shout in our living rooms to draw our attention away from the newspaper or the boiling pasta on the stove. In this case, we see the print media doing its job, giving us much fuller answers than TV will to the good old Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

State Fair Breaks Even?

After receiving a couple comments on one of my earlier posts on the State Fair, I went searching for updates. I found the trusty Huron Plainsman reporting on an October 19 meeting of the State Fair Advisory Commission. According to fair business manager Lynn Moller, the fair may break even this year! His figures at the meeting indicated a deficit of a mere $81,061, which may be erased once the Department of Revenue kicks in an expected $14,000 and sponsors write their checks for an outstanding $65,000. Hooray for good news! Perhaps the fair is on its way to reversing twenty years of decline and sustaining itself without continued backfilling and subsidy from Pierre.

State Fair Attendance Up... and Down!

The State Fair board has apparently had enough time to coordinate their spin and get all the principals on the same page so they can release their attendance numbers, which remained a closely guarded secret for almost a month after the fair wrapped up. The Rapid City Journal reports that daily average attendance and vendor sales were up from last year. But remember, the fair truncated this year's event from eight days to five. So while daily attendance was up from 19,000 last year to 26,000 this year, total attendance dropped again, from 158,000 last year to 133,000 this year.

Fair manager Susan Hayward said attendance and other indicators show that the move to the shorter fair was a success.

"We are pleased with the figures that have come in, and this has been the most successful fair season we have had in my four years as manager," Hayward said Friday as officials released the attendance figures.

Now remember, this is the same Susan Hayward who is on record saying that attendance figures "are no indication of how well the fair is doing." I'm willing to give Hayward the benefit of the doubt and assume that her earlier comments in the Huron Plainsman during the fair were taken out of context. Surely she meant to say attendance figures are no indication of how well the fair is doing, at least not until we can cherry-pick the figures that make us look better. We'll see how well the spin from the fair board and the political forces from Huron goes over during the 2007 legislative session.

"We're Not Racing!" -- South Dakota State Fair Downplays Attendance

Summer is wrapping up, and in a state where tourism is the second-largest industry, we pay close attention to the success of our various efforts to draw tourists here for one last blast of fun and taxable spending before the leaves and the snow begin their race to the ground. We should pay even closer attention to the success of an event like the South Dakota State Fair, which the state subsidized last year to the tune of $1,000,000 last year, only to see a decline in attendance from 210,000 for the 2004 event to 158,000 at the month-early 2005 event. A tad disappointed, the state reduced the subsidy, handing the State Fair a meager (please read that adjective with sarcasm, thank you) $750,000 to keep the event afloat this year.

Now the State Fair has made efforts to improve over last year's performance. The fair moved back to the traditional Labor Day weekend and shortened its run to five days. But as a demonstration of its lack of confidence (either in its actual performance or in its ability to generate instant spin), the State Fair officials are refusing to release any attendance numbers until two weeks after the fair ends. Says State Fair manager Susan Hayward in the Huron Plainsman, "The No. 1 reason the attendance figures will not be released is because they are no indication of how well the fair is doing." Hayward complains that "sometimes the press relies heavily on the attendance figures as a measuring stick on how the fair is doing."

So the number of people attending an event is not a measure of an event's success? State Fair officials are certainly bucking conventional wisdom here. The Lifelight Christian music festival in Sioux Falls just wrapped up its three-day run, and event coordinators Mike Samp and Nathan Schock offered the media attendance estimates each day, rain or shine, from the 50,000 who braved the logistical nightmare of Friday's rain and mud, to Saturday's rebound to 93,000 concertgoers losing flip-flops in the mud, to Sunday's 120,000 who came for partly sunny skies and the Newsboys and set a one-day attendance record for Lifelight. Across the border, the Minnesota State Fair posts as the second "Quicklink" on its home page a chart comparing daily attendance between last year's fair and this year's. These successful events don't hesitate to make attendance numbers public, even though neither is supported by public money. (The Minnesota State Fair has received no public funding of any kind since 1949.)

Fair manager Hayward can likely make a strong argument that the State Fair is more than a revenue-generator. The fair is the "state tournament" for 4-H-ers who compete in a diverse array of fun and practical events. The fair brings families and friends together for an enjoyable traditional event, sort of a South Dakota family reunion. We certainly shouldn't judge the success of every aspect of our culture in terms of numbers and dollars. However, when $750,000 of state tax dollars are involved, taxpayers are entitled to ask for practical policy results. The state doesn't spend $750,000 on the state debate, football, or basketball tournaments that Secretary mentions (in today's Argus editorial) in justifying state funding for the fair. When the state throws that much money at a project, it expects a return on that investment.

To claim that attendance numbers aren't a measure of the fair's success defies good business sense. Success in tourism is increased visitor numbers. Visitors equal dollars and good word-of-mouth. Visitors are votes, people signaling their support of an event with their wheels and their wallets. As a publicly funded event, the State Fair has an obligation to inform its stockholders (us taxpayers) of the results our money is producing. To keep those numbers hidden, even for a couple weeks, smacks of little kids who see they are falling a step or two behind in a game and whiningly declare, "We're not racing!" Even if the attendance numbers aren't good, the State Fair should deal straightforwardly with us and conduct its business as openly as possible.