VIEWPOINT | A budget surplus can reflect careful planning and still demand scrutiny

Guest column by Erik Muckey

There’s been a lot of chatter about South Dakota’s $69 million surplus, and much of it starts from a fair question.

“If we ended the year with money left over, why didn’t we spend it?”

Start with what the surplus is. South Dakota cannot run a deficit. Voters put that requirement in our Constitution in 2012, which means we will always end the year with a surplus. The question is never whether we have one but why, and how it was achieved.