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Jan. 8 in Pierre on the first day of the 2013 legislative session.
• He noted that South Dakota is "a comparative bright spot of contained spending" in a nation of fiscally short states. Minnesota, Daugaard said, is $1.1 billion short at the current time.
• While the Governor studiously avoided education reform topics in his message, he did announce a criminal justice effort aimed at lessening the number of inmates held in state prisons. Instead, he noted the results of a criminal justice work group, highlighting three of its recommendations.
• Those included the creation of alternative courts for repeat offenders with serious addiction problems. A pilot program has shown an impressive 80 percent of partici

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