Every jurisdiction in this catalog has entries whose figures move when a bill passes, whose act takes effect on a later date, or whose program is repealed while its agency keeps advertising it. This page watches each jurisdiction's law, follows a bill through its own jurisdiction's process where its stages are recorded, and names the catalog entries each instrument touches.
12 instruments in South Dakota. Tracked across 51 jurisdictions. Every other jurisdiction on the board is still watched by hand.
A bill that died is listed only where a guide, an agency, or a news story has described it as current law. That is the failure that puts a number in front of a veteran which no assessor, registrar, or school will honor.
=No change to benefitsChanges how the department consults the Veterans Council; no benefit changes.
Amended 1-46A-5 so the Department of Veterans Affairs shall, rather than may, consult the South Dakota Veterans Council, changed the interval to quarterly, and added an express duty on the council to provide recommendations on budgets, legislation, policies and programs affecting veterans and their dependents. Membership was restated as one representative each of the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, National American Indian Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Vietnam Veterans of America chapters 1054 and 959, and any congressionally chartered veterans organisation invited to join by a unanimous vote of the representatives. National American Indian Veterans was not on the previous list. Tracked because the council is the body 3-3-9 uses to distribute the veterans preference materials and the body 33A-5-14 makes report annually on the cemetery endowment.
▲Expands benefitsLets the disabled veterans pheasant hunt run during the longer shooting preserve season.
Amended 41-11-5.5. The hunt could previously be held "before or during the regular pheasant season"; it may now be held during the private shooting preserve season under 41-10-11, which may be all or any part of the seven months from September 1 to March 31. The narrower words produced a wider window. The act also replaced the loose reference to a "K Award" with a citation to special monthly compensation level K under 38 U.S.C. 1114 as of January 1, 2026, and removed the phrase "resident or nonresident" from the definition of disabled veteran without substituting a residency condition, so a nonresident veteran remains eligible. The twenty percent disability threshold is unchanged and remains the lowest in any South Dakota recreation statute.
▲Expands benefitsRequires a four-year refund where a permanent and total claim was still pending at VA when the deadline passed.
Amended 10-4-40 to provide that where a veteran meets every eligibility requirement for the disabled veteran exemption except the application deadline because a permanent and total disability claim is pending at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the board of county commissioners must abate or refund the difference in taxes accumulated since the effective date of the claim, not exceeding the previous four years. The word is "must", where the neighbouring late-application paragraph says "may". Also amended 10-4-41 for surviving spouses, but without the mandatory limb, so the two sections now differ. Tracked because a veteran whose rating arrives years after the effective date has an entitlement rather than a request, and no summary of the program yet says so.
Replaced the text of 33A-2-8, which had reached the question through a cross-reference to 43-28-2(7), with a direct list: a veteran may record a certificate of discharge from armed forces or National Guard service free, and the register of deeds must provide a free certified copy to the veteran, a department representative, an individual the veteran designated, the veteran’s legal representative, a county or tribal veterans service officer, an accredited veterans service organisation representative, or the next of kin of a deceased veteran, each on a form disclosing their eligibility. The section expressly does not apply to a version of the certificate that does not display the veteran’s type of discharge, which leaves the member copy outside the restrictions and makes it the version to record where the character of service is the concern. Tracked because published guidance still describes the pre-2026 mechanism.
Sponsor
The Chair of the Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs at the request of the Department of Veterans AffairsSenate
▲Expands benefitsLets a veteran who missed a deadline petition for four years of refunds under the paraplegic dwelling exemption.
Amended 10-4-24.10 to let a veteran who would otherwise qualify for the paraplegic dwelling exemption, but who missed the owner-occupied classification deadline or the exemption deadline, petition the board of county commissioners to refund the taxes paid in any of the previous four years, with the board free to approve or reject in its discretion, and amended 10-18-2 so the abatement chapter carries the petition. Tracked because the paraplegic exemption is a full exemption with no ceiling and is the larger of the two South Dakota veteran property tax programs on any house worth more than $200,000, so four years of it is a substantial sum, and because the Department of Revenue still tells applicants the exemption must be applied for annually although the statute has continued it automatically since 2019.
▲Expands benefitsRequires anyone paid to help with a veterans benefit claim to sign a written agreement disclosing terms and fees.
Created 33A-2-37 to 33A-2-42. A person taking compensation to advise, assist or consult on a veterans benefits matter must sign a written agreement disclosing terms, compensation and four specific facts including that other organisations may do the same work free of charge, may not charge an initial or nonrefundable fee, may not guarantee an outcome or a level of benefit, may not be paid for a claim filed inside the one-year presumptive period after release from active duty without a signed waiver, may not use international call centres or a veteran’s own log-in credentials, and may not take a referral fee. Compensation must be contingent on an increase in the benefit awarded and may not exceed five times the monthly increase. The attorney general may impose a civil penalty of up to five thousand dollars. Accredited agents, attorneys and representatives regulated by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs are outside the chapter.
▲Expands benefitsOpened the Guard tuition benefit to in-state private nonprofit colleges.
Created 33-6-5.5 and 33-6-5.6, letting an in-state private nonprofit postsecondary institution recognised under 26 U.S.C. 501(c)(3) as of January 1, 2024 and authorised under chapter 13-48 participate in the National Guard tuition benefit program. The condition that makes it work is that the institution must agree to accept the state benefit plus any federal tuition benefit as full and complete payment of tuition for a qualifying student, so the school absorbs the gap between its own tuition and the state maximum rather than billing the student. The Department of the Military publishes the maximum benefit for the coming academic year by July 1 and pays a participating institution within sixty days of a request.
Sponsor
The Chair of the Joint Committee on Appropriations at the request of the Department of the MilitarySenate
▲▼Expands and restrictsRaised the exempt value from $150,000 to $200,000 but dropped the inflation escalator.
Amended 10-4-40 and 10-4-41 to raise the exempt full and true value from one hundred fifty thousand dollars to two hundred thousand, and amended 10-6-154 so the annual assessment notice names the veteran exemptions. Tracked for what did not survive as much as for what did: the bill as introduced said two hundred fifty thousand and added an annual consumer price index escalator beginning January 1, 2025. The House Military and Veterans Affairs committee struck the "fifty" and the Senate Taxation committee struck the escalator, so the figure is a flat $200,000 that does not index. Guidance quoting $250,000, or describing the exemption as inflation-adjusted, is describing the introduced bill rather than the law, and guidance still quoting $150,000 predates the act.
▲Expands benefitsRepealed the residency requirement and the income cap for admission to the State Veterans Home.
Rewrote 33A-4-25. The old text required an honorable discharge, a residence maintained in South Dakota at some time in the five years preceding application, and income no more than one thousand dollars a year above the maximum income limitation for VA pension benefits. The new text asks only that the applicant be a veteran as defined by 33A-2-1 and be eligible for the payment of per diem for domiciliary or nursing home care in a state home, and turns residency into an admission preference alongside a preference for members of federally recognised tribes located wholly or partly in the state. Tracked because the income cap in particular is still published in guidance and is the reason a veteran with a pension reads the program as closed to them. The spouse income condition in 33A-4-26 and the one-year state residency requirement for a surviving spouse in 33A-4-27 were not repealed and still apply.
Sponsor
The Chair of the Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs at the request of the Department of Veterans AffairsHouse
▲Expands benefitsLets a disabled veteran take an ordinary plate and keep the fee exemption.
Created 32-5-157.1, allowing a disabled veteran who meets the requirements of 32-5-156 and 32-5-157 to obtain standard issue county motor vehicle or motorcycle licence plates in place of disabled veteran plates while still paying fees according to 32-5-160, which is the section that removes the annual registration fee. The exemption follows the veteran rather than the plate design, so a veteran who would rather not advertise a disability on a bumper does not pay for the choice. North Dakota reached the same result the following year through a different mechanism. The trade-off is that the disabled parking privilege in 32-30-11.1 is keyed to the disabled veteran plate and is given up with it.
▲Expands benefitsRaised the National Guard tuition benefit from 50 to 100 percent and stopped counting the GI Bill against it.
Amended 33-6-5, 33-6-5.1, 33-6-5.2, 33-6-5.3, 33-6-6 and 33-6-7 to raise the state tuition benefit for a member of the South Dakota National Guard from fifty percent to one hundred percent of in-state resident tuition, undergraduate and graduate, subsidised and unsubsidised, and at a state technical college. Section 7 of the same act created 33-6-5.4, which defines "federal tuition benefit" as a benefit provided by the United States Department of Defense, Department of the Army or Department of the Air Force and expressly excludes any benefit or entitlement provided by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The second half is the one nobody quotes: Department of Defense tuition assistance is applied before the state benefit, but GI Bill entitlement is not counted at all. That is the opposite of the rule in 13-55-2, which requires a wartime veteran to exhaust federal tuition benefits before the state pays anything.
Sponsor
The Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs at the request of the Department of the MilitaryHouse
House Bill 1054, signed February 28, 2023, added a paragraph to 33A-5-4 letting the executor of a deceased veteran buy a headstone privately and still receive "the one-hundred-dollar state stipend" for erecting it where the name, rank, branch of service and dates of birth and death are professionally etched on the back. It was drafted against a cap that was then one hundred dollars. House Bill 1065, signed March 27, 2023, separately raised that cap from one hundred to two hundred dollars and was drafted against the pre-1054 text, so it did not carry the new paragraph. The Revisor merged them 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 administers the result as two payments, $200 to set a government marker and $100 toward etching a private one, which gives both figures work but is a reading rather than what either act said.
A bill moves when the people who vote on it hear from the people it affects. Enter your address to see who represents you in Congress and in your state legislature, and where to get free, accredited help with a VA claim: your county veterans service officer or town veterans’ agent, and your state’s service offices.