SD newspapers bow out of fight for 3 percent hike for legal notices

• David Bordewyk

David Bordewyk

Talk about it

More...

• Meetings webcast here

PIERRE — The Legislature’s rules review committee has canceled a Wednesday hearing about increasing the prices which government bodies pay newspapers for public-notice advertising.

The state Bureau of Administration withdrew the proposal at the request of the South Dakota Newspaper Association.

“We don’t have four votes in the committee. We can’t get the votes,” SDNA Executive Director Dave Bordewyk said Monday. “I don’t want to cause further grief right now.”

The panel has six members. At their August meeting, on a 4-2 vote, the committee refused to accept the proposed changes and instead sent the matter to a hearing.

The purpose of the hearing, which was scheduled for Wednesday, was to decide whether the rules should be suspended until the Legislature can consider them next winter.

“This would have been a 3 percent increase in rates that have not been changed since 2006,” Tony Venhuizen, the governor’s spokesman, said Monday.

“The rules review committee was uncomfortable with making this change without input from the full Legislature, so (the Bureau of Administration) decided to not move forward at this time,” he continued.

On the newspaper rates, Gibson and Tornow wanted to send the proposal back for further consideration about whether 3 percent constituted a “nominal” increase for local governments to pay.

The existing rates stay in place. Bordewyk said the SDNA board of directors hasn’t met since the decision to withdraw. He said the next step isn’t clear yet.

The rules review committee faces several other difficult decisions Wednesday.

One is the proposed rules from the state Department of Education for its new school accountability system that would replace No Child Left Behind.

Both the Associated School Boards of South Dakota and the South Dakota Education Association officially oppose the changes, which add new elements and criteria that schools must meet.

The committee also is set to consider for a second time the proposed rules by the Daugaard administration that would clarify 85-octane gasoline could be sold legally in western South Dakota.

The committee deadlocked 3-3 at the August meeting about how to proceed with those rules. The committee has four Republicans and two Democrats.

The Wednesday meeting starts at 11:30 a.m. CDT in room 414 of the state Capitol.

Other locations will be connected via the state video-conferencing network. It can be viewed at Mitchell Technical Institute, 1800 E. Spruce, Room TC 155;

The meeting also can be monitored via webcast. The address is http://legis.state.sd.us/interim/2012/ meetings.aspx on the Internet. Click on the SDPB phoenix logo next to the meeting.

Tags: news, updates, legislature, state, capitol, newspapers, media