Daugaard's Final Budget Address On Tuesday

Governor Dennis Daugaard will deliver a farewell and his final budget address Tuesday.
 
Daugaard is expected to present a budget foundation that can be used by the incoming Noem administration.
 
But don’t expect to see online sales tax collections represented in this address.
 
The annual budget address is required by the state constitution. Governor Daugaard and his staff will reveal revenue projections for the next 18 months. That includes the current and next fiscal year.
 
Tony Venhuizen is Daugaard’s Chief-of-staff. He says Governor Daugaard and Governor-elect Kristi Noem met as he was creating the budget proposal. Venhuizen says a lot of the work that is done to prepare for the budget address starts in the summer.
 
He says rather than starting from scratch, the incoming Noem administration can start with Daugaard’s budget, and make changes from there.
 
“That really would need to be done prior to the election,” Venhuizen says. “There’s no way a new governor could start from scratch. Governor Daugaard’s budget will lay out that work, lay out the foundation for a budget for next year, the parameters, what’s revenue doing, how are expenses looking.”
 
Venhuizen says Daugaard’s budget will not reflect recent online sale tax collections, which were upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year.
 
That state law requires online retailers to collect and remit online sales tax starting November 1, which are collected throughout the month, remitted in December and tabulated in January.
 
“What that means here today is the state doesn’t have any actual data about actual collections that have result from that ruling. We won’t have that for a little over a month,” Venhuizen says. “The governor will certainly have that in mind when he presents his budget. He really feels strongly that we need to be cautious and base these projections on actual receipts. We’re just not quite to the point where we’re able to do that.”
 
Those online sales tax collections will remain revenue neutral, according to current state law, which scales back the state sales tax on purchases per every $20 million collected online.