Simplified: Mayors from Sioux Falls, Tea, Harrisburg and Brandon got together Wednesday morning for a panel hosted by the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce. A good chunk of the discussion centered on frustrations with state lawmakers and their "anti-growth" policies.
Why it matters
- It's not a very fun time to be leading a fast-growing city in South Dakota, apparently. Mayors Paul TenHaken (Sioux Falls), Harry Buck (Brandon), Derick Wenck (Harrisburg) and Casey Voelker (Tea) shared gripes about the challenges of managing costly infrastructure projects.
- Those challenges are made even more tricky by a combination of declining revenues due to new property tax relief efforts and the state legislature's track record of shutting down ways for cities to raise taxes.
- In Sioux Falls, for example, the city is looking at losing $25 million in revenue over the next decade, TenHaken said. Wenck noted it'll be even trickier for Harrisburg to keep up with things like paving more roads because the city's budget is already pretty tight, saying there's "nothing to trim."
"The legislature sent a message of, 'we want to stop growth,'" TenHaken said, noting that lawmakers voted for property tax cuts that'll impact municipalities, voted against new ways for the cities to raise revenue and voted against funding expansion of the Sioux Falls airport.
Tell me more
In addition to encouraging folks to hold lawmakers accountable, the mayors also talked about the importance of collaboration with one another in managing regional growth.
- That's particularly relevant when it comes to infrastructure like wastewater and roads, but it can also apply to conversations about quality of life amenities like pools and bike trails.
And there's a fair amount of collaboration that still needs to be figured out.
"We need to look at the regionalization of policing and fire protection," Wenck added.
Wenck also pointed out that about 60% of students in the Harrisburg School District are actually residents of the city of Sioux Falls, illustrating how close the two communities now are to one another.
What happens next?
The panel of mayors encouraged residents to take a look at how their lawmakers voted and be sure to "hold them accountable," as TenHaken put it.
"If this legislature goes back next year and takes a bigger bite (out of property tax revenues) ... those are going to be hard discussions we're gonna have," TenHaken said.
