01/23/2026
There's a large section at the end of this article on "nursing shortage." What Skipper, director of finance for corrections, actually said was that state employee nurse wages are and have been artificially "capped" by state government and the Legislature. Over the decades, state employee nurse wages have been kept artificially kept low, and RN positions have been eliminated from state government and turned to contracted FTEs in order to keep official state employee nurse wages restricted.
The South Dakota Department of Corrections aims to cut its turnover rate by 12% in the next year by focusing on help for new recruits.
