Joint Appropriations Committee shoots down funding for Douglas School District

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Friday, the South Dakota Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee failed to approve funding for a new elementary school in the Douglas District, Box Elder.

Senate Bill 204, if it had passed, would have given a $6 million grant to the district for the construction of a new elementary school.

The funding would have alleviated the issue Box Elder and Ellsworth Air Force Base are having with the current elementary school being at maximum capacity and hundreds of families expected to move into the area over the next couple of years.

Prime sponsor of the bill, Senator Helene Duhamel of Rapid City, believes the committee’s decision is not only disappointing in not supporting the military, and will also set the city behind for years to come.

“When you’re against the timeline, a hundred kids a year coming as soon as the next couple of years and 1,500 kids roughly by 2040, there is no time to wait. But in fact, without the money upfront to build the school, and all the plans and designs, they’re just in a holding pattern,” Duhamel said.

Duhamel went on to say she will continue to push for funding in the future as she believes this is an investment worth making. Without this funding, the district will look to use mobile units to teach kids for the foreseeable future.

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