Bill > HB1204

This bill establishes the South Dakota school construction fund, administered by the Department of Education, to provide interest-free loans to school districts for constructing or expanding school buildings, with loan amounts capped at forty percent of project costs and repayment over twenty years. The fund will allocate thirty percent of its money to larger districts with four thousand or more students and seventy percent to all other districts, with a "school building" defined as a structure housing kindergarten through twelfth-grade educational programs. School districts are ineligible for these loans if they qualify for other loans, are located too close to another district's headquarters, or are small and not designated as "sparse school districts" (meaning they have fewer than two hundred students and don't meet specific sparsity criteria). The School Finance Accountability Board will create rules for loan applications, review processes, and disbursement, requiring districts to provide financial information like their capital outlay fund balance, past transfers from that fund, current levy, enrollment numbers, and enrollment trends, while also setting criteria for assessing applications based on these financial and enrollment factors. The Department of Education will report annually to a special committee on loan details, and the state treasurer will transfer one dollar from the general fund to initiate the South Dakota school construction fund, with this amount appropriated for loan purposes, and the entire act will take effect on June 30, 2026.

Budget and Finance

https://sdlegislature.gov/#/Session/Bill/26529