HILL CITY, SD — Rep. Dusty Johnson has had a long road full of town hall-style meetings since he announced his intent to run for governor last year. Many have been with area experts, however others have been members of the general public, seeking to address the individual voter’s individual concerns.

Johnson’s meeting this morning, a breakfast at the Hill City Cafe proved this, with Johnson coming out to speak to folks gathered from the community.

The primary concern? Education. Since Pres. Trump’s second term began, education has been a continual national issue as the President has made motions to hinder funding for public schools. On our local level, schools face significant funding challenges under South Dakota’s model of taxation (relying primarily on local taxes). 

It happens that this is an issue Johnson has put at the forefront of his campaign for some time. 

Johnson’s main model for how to improve slipping test scores is what he termed the “Mississippi Miracle,” in which significant funding was devoted to reading education (focused on phonics) and Pre-K education. 

Johnson has been hesitant on Pre-K as an essential part of his plans in spite of Mississippi officials considering it vital to their improvement, however he’s been a consistent supporter of phonics instruction and the introduction of more funding toward education. Responding to a question on the subject “I don’t think a school district on their own can execute those kind of turnarounds in Mississippi, there was a tremendous state investment into that Mississippi area,” said Johnson, “School district couldn’t do it on their own. The failure of where we had been the last few years is not at the local level. It is on a total lack of leadership for state government”.

The other major topic? Tech and energy. At the event Johnson made it clear that when it comes to opportunities for energy development in South Dakota, he isn’t willing to leave an opportunity on the table for ideological reasons – stating that he believes in an “All of the above” approach to power in South Dakota.

On data centers? He’s had consistent messaging in support of cautious, but expansive support for making SD “More competitive” to companies looking to develop tech in the area. His main reasoning? Increased property tax revenue from the sites will allow tax breaks for individual homeowners, all we have to do is create economic circumstances which would be appealing to developers, in the past proposing a removal of the excise tax on consumer electronics, which have seen spiking prices since the beginning of the LLM boom due to their frequent use in data centers.

The other benefit, Johnson said, would come in the form of job growth. While construction of a center often requires hundreds of employees, following construction the average data center (around 20k-100k ft.) employs, on average, 20-50 people. Johnson seemed undaunted in his advocacy when this statistic was brought up, saying “Let’s say that they are lying to us by a factor of 10-to-1. 20 jobs in Toronto, [SD], 20 jobs in Mitchell even? 20 great jobs in Mitchell is a big deal”.