Title 1, STATE AFFAIRS AND GOVERNMENT

The records of any Governor and any lieutenant governor are the property of the state and shall be transferred to his or her successor or the state archivist upon leaving office. Once transferred, public access to such records is subject to the provisions of chapter 1-27 . Source…

If a custodian of a public record of a county, municipality, political subdivision, or tax-supported district provides to a member of the public, upon request, a copy of the public record, a reasonable fee may be charged for any specialized service. Such fee may include a reasona…

Unless released to the public pursuant to § 1-27-1.21 , any record of an officer designated in § 1-27-1.19 , which is exempted from the provisions of § 1-27-1 , must be opened to the public upon either the death of the former officer or five years from the date the officer left o…

Whenever an officer designated in § 1-27-1.19 leaves office and transfers his or her records to the state archivist, the former officer shall retain the right to approve or deny the release of any record exempted from the provisions of § 1-27-1 . The former officer may exercise t…

The state archivist may enter into agreements with any officer designated in § 1-27-1.19 for the transfer of the former officer's records to a museum, institution of higher learning, or other suitable repository within South Dakota upon determining that such repository will allow…

An agency of the state or a political subdivision may not enter into a settlement agreement with a party to any civil action or proceeding involving a claim for monetary damages or equitable relief in which the settlement agreement requires nondisclosure or confidentiality of the…

The provisions of §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15 , inclusive, and 1-27-4 shall be liberally construed whenever any state, county, or political subdivision fiscal records, audit, warrant, voucher, invoice, purchase order, requisition, payroll, check, receipt, or other record of receipt, c…

Each public body shall maintain a file of all letters of denial of requests for records. This file shall be made available to any person on request. Source: SL 2009, ch 10 , § 5.

The following records are not subject to §§ 1-27-1 , 1-27-1.1 , 1-27-1.3 , and § 1-27-1.23 : (1) Personal information in records regarding any student, prospective student, or former student of any educational institution, if the records are maintained by and in the possession of…

The following financial, commercial, and proprietary information is specifically exempt from disclosure pursuant to §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15 , inclusive: (1) Valuable formulae, designs, drawings, computer source code or object code, and research data invented, discovered, authored,…

Drafts, notes, recommendations, and memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended are exempt from disclosure pursuant to §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15 , inclusive. Source: SL 2009, ch 10 , § 8.

Any record that is relevant to a controversy to which a public body is a party but which record would not be available to another party under the rules of pretrial discovery for causes pending in circuit court are exempt from disclosure pursuant to §§ 1-27-1 to 1-27-1.15 , inclus…

No elected or appointed official or employee of the state or any political subdivision may be compelled to provide documents, records, or communications used for the purpose of the decisional or deliberative process relating to any decision arising from that person's official dut…

All records of public officials of this state required to be kept or maintained by law are the property of the state and may not be mutilated, destroyed, transferred, removed, or otherwise damaged or disposed of, in whole or in part, except as provided by law. Source: SL 1967, ch…

There is hereby created a board consisting of the commissioner of human resources and administration, state auditor, attorney general, auditor-general, and state archivist to supervise and authorize the destruction of records. The state records manager shall also serve as an ex o…

The board created by § 1-27-11 shall be administered under the direction and supervision of the Bureau of Human Resources and Administration and the commissioner thereof. The board shall retain the quasi-judicial, quasi-legislative, advisory, other nonadministrative and special b…

The commissioner of human resources and administration shall establish within the organizational structure of the Bureau of Human Resources and Administration a records management program, which will apply efficient and economical management methods to the creation, utilization, …

There is hereby created in the state treasury a records management internal service fund. The commissioner of human resources and administration shall apportion all expenses incurred in the administration and operation of the records management program to all state departments, a…

The head of each agency shall submit to the commissioner of human resources and administration, in accordance with the procedures, rules, and standards established by the commission, schedules proposing the length of time each state record series warrants retention for administra…

The head of each agency, also, shall submit lists of state records in his or her custody that are not needed in the transaction of current business and that do not have sufficient administrative, legal, or fiscal value to warrant further keeping for disposal in conformity with th…

Upon termination of employment with the state, each agency head shall transfer his or her records to a successor or to the state archives for appraisal and permanent retention. The records of any state agency shall, upon termination of its existence or functions, be transferred t…

If any material of actual or potential archival significance is determined by a state agency to be at risk of destruction or deterioration, and the material is not essential to the conduct of daily business in the agency of origin, the agency head may transfer the records to the …

Any record transferred to the physical custody of the archivist remains the legal property of the agency of origin, subject to all existing copyrights and statutory provisions regulating the record's usage, until such time as the agency head formally transfers legal title to the …

Any nonrecord material not included within the definition of records as contained in § 1-27-9 may be destroyed at any time by the agency in possession of such materials without the prior approval of the commissioner of human resources and administration. Source: SL 1967, ch 253 ,…

The commissioner of human resources and administration shall promulgate such rules, standards, and procedures as are necessary or proper to effectuate the purposes of §§ 1-27-9 to 1-27-18 , inclusive, except that rules, standards, and procedures relating to disposal of records pu…

Upon request, the commissioner of human resources and administration shall assist and advise in the establishment of records management programs in the legislative and judicial branches of state government. The commissioner may, as required by each branch, provide program service…

The governing body of each county, municipality, township, district, authority, or any public corporation or political entity, whether organized and existing under charter or under general law, shall promote and implement the principles of efficient records management for local r…

The State Record Destruction Board shall meet at least once each year and consider requests of all political subdivisions for the destruction of records and to authorize their destruction as in the case of state records. However, in the case of any records recommended to be destr…

The common language of the state is English. The common language is designated as the language of any official public document or record and any official public meeting. The official indigenous language of the state is the language of the O'ceti Sakowin, Seven Council Fires, also…

For the purposes of §§ 1-27-20 to 1-27-25 , inclusive, an official public document or record is any document officially compiled, published, or recorded by the state including deeds, publicly probated wills, records of births, deaths, and marriages, and any other document or reco…

The provisions of §§ 1-27-20 to 1-27-25 , inclusive, do not apply: (1) To instruction in foreign language courses; (2) To instruction designed to aid students with limited English proficiency in a timely transition and integration into the general education system; (3) To the app…

No person may be denied employment with the state or any political subdivision of the state based solely upon that person's lack of facility in a foreign language, except where related to bona fide job needs reflected in the exemptions in § 1-27-22 . Source: SL 1995, ch 9 , § 5

Sections 1-27-20 to 1-27-25 , inclusive, may not be construed in any way to infringe upon the rights of citizens under the State Constitution or the Constitution of the United States in the use of language in any private activity. No agency or officer of the state nor any politic…

Before requesting or requiring that any local government provide information or data to a state agency, the state agency shall first determine whether the information or data is available from the Department of Legislative Audit. If the information or data is available from the D…

Terms used in §§ 1-27-29 to 1-27-32 , inclusive, mean: (1) "Private entity," any person or entity that is not a public entity as defined by subdivision 3-21-1 (2); (2) "State agency," any association, authority, board, commission, committee, council, department, division, office,…

No state agency may disclose that it is conducting a financial investigation, examination, or audit of a private entity while the financial investigation, examination, or audit is ongoing, except as provided by § 1-27-31 . Source: SL 1996, ch 12 , § 2; SL 2004, ch 25 , § 2

Section 1-27-1 shall not apply to such records as are specifically enjoined to be held confidential or secret by the laws requiring them to be so kept. Source: SDC 1939, § 48.0701; SL 1977, ch 16 , § 1

All proprietary or trade secret information obtained by a state agency from or concerning a private entity is confidential, except as provided by § 1-27-31 . Source: SL 1996, ch 12 , § 3; SL 2004, ch 25 , § 3

A state agency may disclose that it is conducting a financial investigation, examination, or audit of a private entity and disclose the information obtained from such an investigation, examination, or audit as follows: (1) To the private entity being investigated, examined, or au…

Disclosure of information made confidential by §§ 1-27-28 to 1-27-32 , inclusive, except as provided in § 1-27-31 , is a Class 1 misdemeanor. Source: SL 1996, ch 12 , § 5; SL 2004, ch 25 , § 5

The provisions of this chapter do not supersede more specific provisions regarding public access or confidentiality elsewhere in state or federal law. Source: SL 2004, ch 25 , § 6

The provisions of §§ 1-27-35 to 1-27-43 , inclusive, do not apply to the Unified Judicial System or Public Utilities Commission. Source: SL 2008, ch 14 , § 2.

Any informal request for disclosure of documents or records shall be made to the custodian of the record. The custodian of the record may then provide the requestor with the document or record upon payment of the actual cost of mailing or transmittal, the actual cost of reproduct…

For any informal request reasonably likely to involve a fee in excess of fifty dollars, the custodian shall provide an estimate of cost to the requestor prior to assembling the documents or records and the requestor shall confirm in writing his or her acceptance of the cost estim…

If an informal request is denied in whole or in part by the custodian of a document or record, a written request may be made by the requestor pursuant to this section: (1) A written request may be made to the public record officer of the public entity involved. The public record …

If a public record officer denies a written request in whole or in part, or if the requestor objects to the public record officer's estimate of fees or time to respond to the request, a requestor may within ninety days of the denial commence a civil action by summons or, in the a…