Our speaker today was Jerry Derr, Pennington County Commissioner. He helped us try to understand property taxes. Each county in South Dakota has their own budgets and levy’s based on the state’s regulations. There are a lot of areas property taxes cover, the largest on the local level are school districts and dividing up the T.I.F.s. Allowed abatements then have to be split among county property owners, then the state says what counties have to collect based on budget needs. The state requires counties to collect as much tax allowed to cover schools so the state doesn’t have to.
The total Pennington County payable for 2025 was $225 million. $60 million goes to run the county, the rest is divided up with the largest shares going to schools and public safety.
The last five years have seen an average rise in property assessments of 48%. The market really rose after Covid with property values being inflated - sold far over their worth for cash. This has been hard on fixed income homeowners. The SD legislature is working on solutions, but nothing has passed yet.
In the meantime time all the new revenue is swallowed up in new, larger budgets. Thanks for tackling such a hot issue.
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