PIERRE, S.D. – Senator Billie Sutton, candidate for South Dakota Governor and member of the South Dakota Legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee (GOAC), released the following statement in response to today’s committee deliberation of the GEAR-UP controversy:
It is disturbing to confirm that some state officials had early awareness there were problems with the GEAR-UP program. Taxpayers deserve to know exactly who knew what when and who should be held accountable for each failure.
I support the full use of this committee’s power to root out this collapse of management that resulted in the misuse of millions of taxpayer money and the tragic loss of life. We cannot fix problems if smokescreens prevent us from knowing what caused the problems in the first place.
It has become clear that we must get to the bottom of this in order to move forward, fix the system, and prevent another tragedy. South Dakotans deserve better.
