PIERRE, SD (KELO.COM) You can't spend what you don't have. That's the way House Speaker Mark Mickelson looks at the challenges South Dakota lawmakers face with over $50 million in budget shortfalls.
"We'll give out what we got and one thing we won't do is give out what we don't have," Mickelson tells KELO Radio's It's Your Business Show that funding for teachers, state workers and medicaid providers will likely stay "flat."
House Democratic Leader Spencer Hawley says there are options before any cuts.
"Our point is that we should be looking at our reserves before we make any cuts," Hawley tells KELO Radio's Greg Belfrage Show. But Governor Daugaard is against dipping into the rainy day money because it would damage South Dakota's top credit ratings. Even Hawley admits that there just won't be as much money to go around.
"The one percent growth the schools were gonna get, I see that going down to three-tenths of a percent, the inflation rate, and we are kinda holding the line that that needs to happen," says Hawley.
Republican Representative Don Hagger says lawmakers are going to have to work pretty hard to balance the budget and they're not going to be able to do things they would like to do.
"Everyone's going to have to tighten some belts. I'll just put it that way," predicts Hagger.
Its numbers crunch time for the 2017 State Legislature. They must balance the books with only about two weeks to go.