Joshua Haiar, South Dakota Searchlight
South Dakota lawmakers are set to receive a raise of nearly $3,000 following the state Board of Finance’s approval Wednesday of an obligatory pay adjustment for the next legislative session.
The change will bring 2025 lawmaker salaries to $16,348. The figure is based on the median South Dakota salary, as required by a 2018 law.
The law sets lawmakers’ compensation at one-fifth of the state’s median salary, which the state says is currently $81,740.
Legislators saw their pay decline recently, earning nearly $14,800 for the 2023 legislative session but only about $13,400 in 2024.
Tuesday’s adjustment follows a long history of salary increases for South Dakota lawmakers. When the state’s constitution was adopted in 1889, legislators were paid just $5 per day, plus 10 cents per mile for one round trip to the capital. This compensation remained unchanged for over 30 years, aside from a brief cut in mileage reimbursement to 5 cents in 1891.
In 1921, lawmakers outside the Pierre area were granted a $200 living expense allowance, which survived a court challenge after the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled it to be expense money rather than additional pay.
Lawmakers’ salaries remained modest throughout much of the early 20th century, with multiple failed attempts to raise them. By the 1940s, legislative pay stood at around $500 for a two-year term, until voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1946 allowing the Legislature to change salaries by statute. In 1947, the pay was raised to $525 per session.
Subsequent increases followed, with salaries reaching $1,800 in 1957.
In 1963, the state adopted annual legislative sessions, spurring another significant raise to $5,000 for a two-year term in 1969. Prior to 1963, lawmakers met in Pierre once every two years.
That remained unchanged until 1988, when lawmakers earned $8,000 per term.
In 1999, the Legislature set salaries at $6,000 annually, with added benefits such as a daily expense allowance and mileage reimbursement. That arrangement remained until the 2018 law that now governs legislative compensation.
Lawmakers who live over 50 miles from the Capitol also currently receive up to $166 a day to help cover the cost of travel, a hotel, and food. The state adjusts the amount every year. That allowance was introduced in 1974 for $25 a day.
The 40-day, 2024 Legislative Session at the Capitol in Pierre begins January 14, 2025.