Latest news with #Bill62
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rhoden signs government accountability bills
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden has signed four bills related to government accountability. Summit asks PUC for more time on CO2 pipeline The bills come in response to a series of at least four corruption cases found in state government in the past year prosecuted by the attorney general's office. Attorney General Marty Jackley supported the legislation and testified in favor of many of the bills. Senate Bill 60 which expands the access and investigatory authority of the State Auditor. Senate Bill 61 which modifies the authority of the Board of Internal Controls. Senate Bill 62 which establishes mandatory reporting requirements related to improper government conduct and crime, and to provide a penalty. Senate Bill 63 which establishes protections for state employees who report improper governmental conduct and crime. 'As stewards of taxpayer dollars, we have a responsibility to ensure integrity in how those dollars are spent,' said Rhoden in a news release. All four bills will take effect July 1. 'Today, our State is choosing to better protect taxpayer dollars and those State employees reporting crimes to the Attorney General,' said Jackley in a news release. Rhoden has signed a total of 106 bills into law for the 2025 Legislative Session. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ohio lawmakers are trying to increase penalties on illegally passing a stopped school bus
School buses. (File photo from Sandusky City Schools website.) A pair of bills in the Ohio General Assembly have been proposed by lawmakers to try to curb the number of people who illegally pass a stopped school bus. Ohio Senate Bill 62, introduced by Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, would authorize — but stops shy of mandating — the use of school bus camera equipment. Ohio's law currently neither specifically authorizes nor prohibits the use of cameras on a school bus. 'The goal of this legislation is to deter those from putting our children at risk through the reckless action of passing a stopped school bus,' Gavarone said Wednesday in her testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'At the end of the day, making the decision to pass a stopped school bus illegally is selfish and dangerous.' Ohio House Bill 3 goes a step further by making passing a school bus a misdemeanor with a fine that would range from $250 to $1,000. Repeated offenses could lead to a license suspension, a required safety course and a $2,000 fine. The current penalty for illegally passing a stopped school bus in Ohio is between $0-$500. Ohio state Reps. Cecil Thomas, D-Cincinnati, and Bernie Willis, R-Springfield, introduced the bill, which has yet to have a hearing in the House Transportation Committee, but Willis is the chair of that committee. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Both bills would authorize the use of school bus cameras and create the School Bus Safety Fund in the state treasury. S.B. 62 creates a $300 civil penalty for drivers who pass a stopped school bus illegally. Fifty dollars would go to the School Bus Safety Fund in the state treasury. The remaining $250 would go to the school districts to purchase and maintain cameras for the school buses, although the bill does not require buses to have cameras. It's up to the school districts to decide if they want cameras on buses for all their routes. 'The idea is that the ones who will be funding this will be those who decide to take the reckless action of illegally passing a stopped school bus,' Gavarone said. 'No parent should ever have to worry about their child traveling to and from school.' The Ohio State Highway Patrol issued more than 16,000 citations for passing stopped school buses from 2018 to August 2023, Gavarone said in her testimony. 'That is more than 16,000 times a child's life was placed in danger due to the reckless action of a driver,' she said. 'I would emphasize that this is just citations issued, the number of people who have taken the action of passing a school bus illegally is much higher as it is often difficult to identify the driver or get a clean read of the license plate.' Twenty-eight states — including Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — have passed similar legislation, Gavarone said. The Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group issued 17 recommendations about a year ago, but requiring seat belts on buses was not one of them. Neither of these bills require seat belts on school buses. Seat belts are optional on large school buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds. Only eight states require seat belts on school buses: New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, California, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas. Follow Capital Journal Reporter Megan Henry on Bluesky. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Felonies for silent supervisors a sticking point as anti-corruption bills clear SD Senate
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley holds a press conference at the Sioux Fall Law Enforcement Center on Dec. 17, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight) PIERRE — Supervisors who know about state employee malfeasance and don't report it deserve a felony charge and possible prison time, Attorney General Marty Jackley says. Since a good share of such malfeasance would only net the misbehaving employee a misdemeanor charge, Gov. Larry Rhoden's office says, a felony for the supervisor is a bit much. That disagreement represents the brightest remaining daylight between Jackley and Rhoden on Jackley's four-bill anti-corruption package. All four bills started in the state Senate and have now cleared that chamber; action is pending in the House. The anti-corruption bills were born of a half dozen recent criminal investigations into state employee misbehavior. The governor and attorney general agree on the language in three of the bills, but the question of felonies for state employee supervisors has confounded attempts for consensus on the fourth. Senate Bill 62, which outlines the circumstances under which a supervisor must disclose employee fraud, theft, double dealing or conflicts of interest – and the penalties for failure to do so – cleared the House Judiciary Committee 5-1 on Feb. 11. On Tuesday, the full Senate passed the bill 33-2. SD governor signs bill closing loan loophole in campaign finance law Katie Hruska, a staff attorney in Rhoden's office, pleaded with the committee on Feb. 11 to strike the felony charge from the bill. She noted that the failure of the average citizen to report a hit-and-run traffic accident, to report child and elder abuse, and to disclose knowledge of a felony are all misdemeanor charges under state law. Hruska argued that fear of a class one misdemeanor charge, punishable by up to a year in jail, would be enough to scare skittish supervisors into disclosure 'without creating a climate of fear' among state employees. Her comments convinced Sen. Amber Hulse, R-Hot Springs, who nonetheless supported sending SB 62 to the Senate floor, that the governor's office had valid concerns to address. 'If not reporting child abuse is a class one misdemeanor,' Hulse said, not reporting a conflict of interest doesn't belong in the felony category. Sen. Tom Pischke, R-Dell Rapids, sided with Jackley. Employee misconduct is serious, he said, and the recent cases are proof that the state's current laws are inadequate. 'I applaud the attorney general for not backing down,' Pischke said. One of the recent investigations into former state employees involved an alleged $1.8 million theft by a former Department of Social Services employee. Another involved a Department of Public Safety employee signing off on – and getting paid for performing – food safety inspections that never took place. That one came to light, Jackley said, when a whistleblowing employee reached out to a lawmaker and asked her to report the issue on her behalf without revealing her name. 'I don't think we should learn about a criminal case when a state employee calls a legislator,' Jackley said. Departments say they're tightening internal controls after alleged state employee crimes On Feb. 11, Jackley told the committee his office is looking into three other cases involving state employees. An attempt to switch the penalties to a misdemeanor reappeared on the Senate floor on Tuesday. 'Failing to report a crime is not the same as committing the crime itself,' said Sen. Tamara Grove, R-Lower Brule. Opponents of the amendment urged senators to side with the attorney general. Sen. Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre, said amending a bill on the Senate floor is not 'respectful to the process,' as it doesn't allow non-legislators to make their case for or against the change. Hulse rejected that notion. 'As legislators, we always have the ability to amend the legislation as we decide,' Hulse said in support. 'It is ultimately our decision.' The Senate voted 22-13 to defeat the amendment. Senate Bill 63, designed to protect whistleblowers, sailed through the Judiciary Committee on the strength of a compromise between the Jackley and Rhoden camps. Initially, Jackley's proposed protective measures included his own office signing on to defend state employee whistleblowers sued over their disclosures. That 'got a lot of resistance,' he told the committee. He agreed to dial that back to a provision that would cover the whistleblower's attorney fees in such a lawsuit. The bill wouldn't protect an employee from prosecution if the employee was involved in the reported corruption, and its shielding provisions would expire two years after the whistle is blown. SB 63 passed the Senate 35-0 on Feb. 13. The first of the anti-corruption bills, Senate Bill 60, would give the state auditor the authority to access state agency financial records – which the auditor doesn't currently have – but no longer gives the auditor the ability to conduct forensic audits. Sattgast told South Dakota Public Broadcasting in the wake of the recent scandals that his office's limited authority is a measure of the state's divided duties and limits the elected officer's ability to monitor state records. The state's auditor general is the official charged with monitoring agency inner workings. Former state employee pleads guilty, receives sentence for grocery voucher fraud The governor's office argued that would be duplicative of current auditing rules, and that elected auditors don't necessarily have the experience as professional auditors. The forensic auditing provision was stripped from SB 60 as part of a compromise between Jackley, Rhoden and Auditor Rich Sattgast. SB 60 and the last of the anti-corruption bills, Senate Bill 61, cleared the Senate on the same day, Feb. 6. SB 61 expands the authority of the state's Internal Control Board. Rhoden's office was involved in crafting that bill, a Jackley spokesman told South Dakota Searchlight. Other pending legislation filed in reaction to the recent investigations include bills from lawmakers that would strengthen and clarify the ability of the Legislature's Government Operations and Audit Committee to issue subpoenas compelling written or in-person testimony. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
