South Dakota State Veterans Cemetery

The South Dakota State Veterans Cemetery at Sioux Falls is the first federally funded, state-owned and operated veterans cemetery in the state. It was dedicated on Memorial Day 2021 and the first burials took place on June 4, 2021. Chapter 33A-5 authorised it: 33A-5-15 accepted the donation of land from the city of Sioux Falls, and 33A-5-16 and 33A-5-17 directed the pre-application and grant application to the National Cemetery Administration for a cemetery in Minnehaha County at an estimated cost of six million dollars. What burial provides is a gravesite or columbarium niche, a pre-placed grave liner, a headstone or niche cover, and perpetual care. The cost. A veteran is buried at no charge for any burial option. A spouse is charged, currently $1,002 for any burial option. That figure is not arbitrary: 33A-5-11 allows the Department of Veterans Affairs to set a fee by rule for the burial of an eligible spouse or dependent and provides that the fee may not exceed the United States Department of Veterans Affairs maximum plot allowance for a non-service-connected death of a veteran. So the spouse fee tracks the federal plot allowance and moves when it does, which is why the department says the figure is subject to change and cannot be prepaid. Funding. Section 33A-5-11 creates an operating fund receiving endowment disbursements, donations and cemetery revenue. Section 33A-5-12 allows an endowment fund within the South Dakota Community Foundation, 33A-5-13 set a minimum principal balance of three million dollars by July 1, 2023 and bars expenditures reducing the principal below it once reached, and 33A-5-14 requires the South Dakota Veterans Council to report annually to the Joint Committee on Appropriations on the balance. An expansion was funded in 2025. Senate Bill 52 appropriated $75,000 from the general fund, $1,500,000 in federal fund expenditure authority and $75,000 in other fund expenditure authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs for expansion of the cemetery, under the general charge of the Bureau of Human Resources and Administration, and was declared an emergency measure effective on approval. Operational limits worth knowing when arranging a service. The cemetery conducts seven committal services a day, Monday to Friday, on the hour from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with the 3 p.m. slot reserved for cremation, on a first-come first-served basis, and each is limited to twenty minutes and held in the committal shelter. Remains are moved to the grave after the family leaves. Eligibility is established by a discharge document or DD-214, and the committal date is provisional until the cemetery verifies service and character of discharge. This is separate from the county burial plot provisions in 33A-5-7 and 33A-5-8, under which a county may appropriate money to buy up to ten burial plots with perpetual care for veterans and their spouses who were legally resident in the county at death, with title to the plots vested in the State of South Dakota and burial permits issued by the county auditor.