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economy at minimal state administrative cost.  That federal money generates economic activity, creates jobs, supports rural hospitals, and improves access to healthcare for thousands of working South Dakotans. Recent SD opinion polls show that a majority of South Dakotans believe your state government should expand Medicaid.  Let's hope your state government is listening. 
• The Governor put special emphasis on Career and Technical education programs to "grow our own" workers in critical need areas.  Several bills have been sponsored by our Caucus in previous legislative sessions calling for exactly that approach.  We are pleased that progress in this area may finally be forthcoming.  True economic development throughout South Dakota continues to depend on quality schools, affordable housing, and access to healthcare in all of our local communities. Too much of the previous trend in economic development has been providing big incentives to big projects.   Millions of these state dollars have been spent in an attempt to bring in workers from other states or even other nations.  Clearly, the right approach is to pair our own top-notch students with jobs local employers need to fill.
• The State of the Judiciary speech by Chief Justice Gilbertson updated legislators on the progress made through action taken during the last Legislative Session.  The Criminal Justice Initiative passed in the 2013 Session will continue to grow and provide for alternative sentencing, drug courts, and put more emphasis on rehabilitation. Knowing that our state has a shortage of lawyers in rural areas, progress was also made in the last session in providing for a program which partners with counties, the Bar Association, and state government to provide tuition reimbursement for attorneys practicing in rural areas.
• No other topic dominates the agenda of Democratic legislators more than providing adequate funding to our public schools.  I served on the Education Funding Formula Summer study and we,  after many sessions where we heard from school after school about the hardships and cuts they have endured, came up with a number of proposals to present to the Legislature.  The main item we agreed on was to raise the aid to education to 3.8%.   The Governor's proposed 3% hike to the school funding formula is certainly better than we have done in the last several years.  Still, it would take a 3.8% increase to bring us back to where we were five years ago.  An attempt to bring us back in the 2014-15 school year to where we were in the 2009-10 school year seems like a reasonable goal.  Democrats will strive to adequately fund what we see as our highest priority.
• Last year, the Legislature finally approved a need-based post-secondary scholarship. This was a hard-fought victory which had gone on for many sessions.  In fact,

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