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Co-ops help to build new State Fair exhibit hall
• HURON, S.D. (AP) -- Electric cooperatives in South Dakota are helping to build a new exhibit hall on the South Dakota State Fairgrounds.
• The South Dakota State Fair Foundation says that South Dakota Rural Electric Cooperatives, Basin Electric, National Rural Utility Cooperative Finance Corporation and CoBank have given $116,500 to a capital campaign for the new building.
• The Foundation has raised $2.52 million of its $4 million goal.
• State Fair director Jerome Hertel says 4-H members will have better experiences at the State Fair because of the gift.
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Idaho man new SD Legislative Research Council head
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- The office in Pierre that helps South Dakota lawmakers with research and other tasks has a new leader.
• The Legislature has hired Jason Hancock as director of the Legislative Research Council.
• Hancock most recently was deputy chief of staff for the Idaho State Department of Education.
• The new director formally begins heading the office Aug. 5.
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Lawmaker out-of-state travel reimbursement rises
NORA HERTEL, Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota lawmakers have increased their out-of-state travel since 2011 budget cuts, and a meeting viewed by some people as too conservative has been the top destination, according to records from the state.
• Between July and early May, the state spent about $89,000 in taxpayer money for legislative travel, 48 percent of which covered trips to the American Legislative Exchange Council's 2013 Annual Meeting and States and Nation Policy Summit.
• Every year the Executive Board of the Legislature, a bipartisan panel comprised of representatives and senators, adopts a policy on out-of-state travel reimbursement, and lawmakers recently renewed the policy to allow ALEC events.
• Editorial pages, state Democrats and even some Republicans have protested the use of state funds for ALEC, which they don't consider in the same, nonpartisan (Continued on page 18)
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