Dennis Daugaard in 2016 Governor's State of the State speeches


On Crime: High rates of incarceration does not increase public safety

[In 2013] I spoke about SD's high imprisonment rate for adult offenders--higher than any of our 6 neighboring states. Continuing on that path would have forced the state to build a new women's prison and a new men's prison within 10 years. Worst of all, our high imprisonment rate wasn't making the public any safer. Today, because of the Public Safety Improvement Act, the prison population is below initial projections & we saved millions of dollars last year by avoiding the need for a new women's prison.
Source: 2016 State of the State speech to South Dakota legislature Jan 12, 2016

On Crime: Reforms reduced population on parole

Thanks to criminal justice reforms, the parole success rate increased from 37% of offenders in FY12 to 65% in FY15. Today, parolees can reduce the duration of their parole by a month for each month of parole in which they are 100% compliant. In just one year, over 700,000 days of parole credit were earned. That's nearly 2,000 years of parole credits earned.
Source: 2016 State of the State speech to South Dakota legislature Jan 12, 2016

On Education: Increase teacher salaries to retain and attract hires

SD will have only one new teacher for each position that comes open and the quality of education suffers when schools cannot be selective and have to hire from a very constricted pool of applicants. We need to increase the supply of new teachers entering the field, and we need more current teachers to stay in the field. These shortages are caused by demographic and economic factors, but we cannot fix this problem unless we increase salaries.
Source: 2016 State of the State speech to South Dakota legislature Jan 12, 2016

On Education: Tuition freeze on college education

Students need to be able to attend college or tech school and finish in a reasonable time without an unreasonable debt. I propose to freeze tuition by using one-time funds to repay debt and continuing our state-subsidized dual credit program. Last school year, SD students saved more than $2.5 million by using this program--more than $1,000 per student in savings. Completing college credits while in high school also helps that student succeed in college, by reducing the time needed to graduate
Source: 2016 State of the State speech to South Dakota legislature Jan 12, 2016

On Education: Increase enrolment in technical institutes

The Build Dakota Scholarship is making postsecondary education an option for more young people by providing a full-ride scholarship for those who will work in a high-need technical field in SD. Overall enrollment at the technical institutes went up--and it went up by even more in these high-demand programs. Before we know it, the first Build Dakota scholars will be graduating and entering the workforce in SD.
Source: 2016 State of the State speech to South Dakota legislature Jan 12, 2016

The above quotations are from 2016 Governor's State of the State speeches.
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Page last updated: Dec 09, 2018