Recruiting qualified employees focus at Monday’s GOP luncheon

HURON — Employers desperate to find more qualified workers should have the tools to recruit them through a tuition reimbursement process that hospitals frequently use to hire physicians, Sen. Jim White, R-Huron, said Monday.
“Workforce development is a drag on our economy,” he said at the weekly Beadle County Republican Party campaign forum in Huron.
“We just cannot get enough qualified people to meet the challenges of our job requirements in South Dakota,” he said.
White, who is term limited in 2020, shared the podium with Rep. Roger Chase, R-Huron, and Rep. Bob Glanzer, R-Huron. Both are running for their second terms in Pierre.
Companies in communities all across the state have the shared challenge of finding workers, and those in Huron are no exception. White believes it should be a priority when legislators convene in January.
A tuition reimbursement benefit could be offered to potential employees just as companies offer benefits for health care and retirement, he said.
“It would help them and also be a way that we can entice people across the state lines to make an application in South Dakota,” White said.
Hospitals have attracted doctors with high student loan debt to town by helping to reduce it over a period of years, he said.
Chase said he, Glanzer and White make a good team as each represents District 22 the best they can.
In the past year, Chase said he was the prime sponsor of three bills that made it through three different committees and passed on the House floor without opposition.
“Folks, you can’t have bipartisan support any better than that, to have three bills go through with not one dissenting vote,” he said.

Funding the new precision agriculture center at South Dakota State University is one example of how much agriculture has changed in just the last 10 years, he said. He tells the story that when he began farming a little more than 30 years ago he carried a pair of pliers and a pocket knife.
Today, his son goes into the field with a smart phone, an iPad and a series of flash drives.
“When he drives by at night that combine cab is lit up like a Christmas tree,” Chase said. “He’s storing data. He’s analyzing data. He knows exactly what he’s planting and where he’s planting it, fertility, the chemical usage.”
Glanzer said the past two years in Pierre have been an incredible experience.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “I’m running this time because I feel that I have some really good qualities to add to the legislative process.”
Glanzer believes the single biggest issue facing the state is juvenile justice. Unintended consequences of the juvenile justice reform legislation passed a few years ago must be addressed, he said.
“Unless they commit a felony, there’s just no consequences to the youth,” Glanzer said. “I think we just need to give our law enforcement agencies, the court system, the probation officers, rehab facilities some of the former tools that they had to come together and face this growing issue.”
Also in the mix is the growing drug abuse problem along with dysfunctional families and parents who provide no leadership and are careless about their responsibility, he said.
Methamphetamine use is continuing to affect people and communities throughout the state.
“We have a big mountain to climb as far as those issues are concerned,” Glanzer said.
White has served on the Appropriations Committee throughout his legislative career, which began with his election to the House in 2010. He has served in the Senate since 2012.
He remembers the struggle Huron legislators had in those years when some lawmakers wanted to stop funding the State Fair. When others explained how little the state was appropriating and how much it was getting in return, those voices were quieted.
“Everything you hear about the State Fair is positive at this point and going forward,” White said.
In the last eight years, about $13 million has been spent on upgrades on the fairgrounds. The new Nordby Exhibit Hall has been a godsend in helping to entice off-season events, he said.
Education will remain a major issue in the upcoming session, White said.
He believes an effort will be made to use some of the $30 to $50 million in new money, coming to the state budget through online sales tax revenues, against the half-cent sales tax increase that has boosted teacher salaries.
But with 105 different legislators, there will likely be that many different ideas on how to spend the money, he said.
White said he also wants to spend his last two years in Pierre finding ways to better compensate the people who care for others in nursing homes.
The election is just two weeks away. The veteran legislator expects this to be a tight one.
“Running for an office and putting your signs up all over town,” Glanzer said, “is not something that a humble farm boy would really savor as part of his life experience, but something you’ve got to do.”
Added Chase: “We’ve done some good things as legislators to help make South Dakota a better place to live for future generations.”