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in the aeronautics fund in order to balance the budget.  I touched on this in a previous article, but a brief summation of the matter is that pilots from all across the state pay taxes and fees that comprise the fund and are to be used solely for airport maintenance and repair.  Upon becoming aware of this, I began working with other legislators to try to restore the funds that were swept.  There are airport projects in communities all across the state that are awaiting approval of funds.  Having dollars available to meet the federal/local match has become even more important because the federal match-rate has declined in recent years.  Airport projects are obviously quite costly, so restoring a portion of the dollars in a year when some extra dollars were available was important to me.  Thankfully, a majority of the legislature agreed that this year presented an opportunity to begin to right a perceived wrong.  If the genesis of the dollars that make up the aeronautics fund was a broader tax imposed upon all taxpayers, the debate would have been different.  However, it is a tax paid by a relatively small number of persons for a specific purpose spelled out explicitly in statute.  We still have over $3 million to repay the fund, but this year we began to make progress.
• A whole host of other spending measures passed in the final days of Session that will benefit any number of South Dakotans.  More importantly, the appropriators and the legislators worked to ensure that the spending measures that were passed were fiscally responsible and that they will help to position us in a better fiscal situation going forward.  This will help to free up dollars in the future for other budgetary priorities, which will allow us to consider enhancing expenditures to those line items while holding the line on taxes.
• On the policy front, we passed HB 1100, which will prohibit units of government from contracting with private corporations to provide "red light cameras" that have been used to issue citations for moving violations.  In short, legal challenges have led to some charges being dismissed because of insufficient evidence that the person receiving a ticket was the one actually in control of the vehicle at the time.  There was pretty widespread consensus that it was appropriate to prohibit public-private contracts, given the legal precedent that has been established.
• SB 108 establishes the Autism Spectrum Disorder workgroup that will study autism disorders' impacts on SD children and to ultimately make recommendations for how to most effectively and efficiently address treatments and coverages for autism spectrum disorders.  The House and Senate disagreed on the versions of the bill passed on either side.  In the end, I was appointed the House chair of a conference committee that came together to work out the differences.  In conference, the different interests were able to work out a compromise that enumerated seven areas that will be addressed throughout the course of the workgroup's labors.  Hopefully, pas

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