South Dakota Headstone Setting and Private Marker Stipend

Section 33A-5-4 pays for setting a headstone, not for buying one. Where the United States government provides a headstone to mark the grave of a veteran who was a resident of South Dakota for one year preceding entrance into military service or preceding death, or provides a memorial marker for a member whose remains were not recovered or identified or were buried at sea, the veterans service officer or field officer shall cause it to be erected, and the expense is paid by the state up to two hundred dollars. No payment is allowed unless a claim is filed with the Department of Veterans Affairs within one year of the date the marker was erected. The second paragraph is the interesting one and it contains a figure that no longer matches the first. An individual responsible for executing the estate of a deceased veteran entitled to a federal marker may elect to buy a headstone at personal expense and still receive "the one-hundred-dollar state stipend" for erecting it, if the veteran's name, rank, branch of service and dates of birth and death are professionally etched on the back of the stone. That mismatch has a history worth recording because it is the kind of thing that costs a family money at a counter. House Bill 1054 of 2023 added the private headstone paragraph and drafted it against a cap that was then one hundred dollars, so it said "the one-hundred-dollar state stipend". The Governor signed it on February 28, 2023. House Bill 1065 of 2023 separately raised the cap in the first paragraph from one hundred to two hundred dollars, and was drafted against the pre-1054 text so it did not carry the new paragraph at all. The Governor signed it on March 27, 2023, a month later. The Revisor merged the two, and the section now caps the setting expense at two hundred dollars while the private-stone paragraph still names a one-hundred-dollar stipend. The Department of Veterans Affairs reads it as two different payments and publishes it that way: $200 toward the cost of setting a government headstone or marker, and $100 for the professional etching of the veteran's military information on the back of a privately purchased headstone. That reading gives both figures work to do and is the one being administered, but it is a reading rather than what either act said. Applications are submitted by a county or tribal veterans service officer to the Pierre office within one year of the setting. Section 33A-5-10 is a protection rather than a payment, and it is one of the better provisions in the chapter. Notwithstanding 44-11-9 or any other law, a funeral director, cemetery operator or other individual holding a federal headstone, memorial headstone or marker may not retain possession of it pending payment for property associated with the funeral or burial or for services rendered. A government marker cannot be held hostage against an unpaid funeral bill.