Noem signs budget, backing down on veto threats

But governor could still veto temporary sales tax cut

Austin Goss, Dakota News Now

Gov. Kristi Noem will not carry out her threats to veto the state budget passed by the South Dakota Legislature.

But the recently re-elected Republican governor still hasn’t put her signature to a sales tax holiday bill that had put 2024’s $7.4 billion budget in her crosshairs.

Noem Monday signed the general budget bill, which she conceded last week during a press conference in Mitchell that she had reservations about. Baked into that budget was a tax decrease in the state’s general sales tax rate from 4.5 percent to 4.2 percent.

But the catch for Noem is that decrease expires in four years.

“Anybody who tells you that is a tax cut is lying,” she said, referring to it as a “tax holiday.”

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