PIERRE — South Dakota’s unemployment system is sinking deeper into debt each week as record amounts of benefits are paid to jobless workers. The Legislature took two major this week toward raising money to replenish it.

The Senate voted 33-0 to reduce the emergency surcharges being levied on all employers to a maximum per employee of $100 this year and $82.50 next year.

To cover the difference, premium costs would be increased on a permanent basis for businesses whose employees more frequently receive unemployment benefits.

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Otherwise employers face surcharges up to $150 per employee this year and again in 2011.

Under the current laws, this year the normal premiums paid by businesses would generate an estimated $27.9 million while the surcharges would produce an estimated $44.2 million.

The proposed changes would redistribute the burden, so that premiums generate $43.4 million and surcharges produce $30.9 million this year.

Sen. Sandy Jerstad, D-Sioux Falls, said she’s been hearing from owners of small businesses who said they can’t afford the $150 surcharges on their workers.

“This bill help give some relief with that,” she said.

The legislation, SB 186, now heads to the House of Representatives.

Just hours earlier, House members voted for a small expansion of unemployment benefits to cover people in approved training programs, so that South Dakota could receive an additional $11.7 million in federal aid.

However, a majority of House members amended the legislation so that the expanded benefits would expire July 1, 2013.

The amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark, acknowledged he was told by state Labor Department officials that South Dakota probably wouldn’t receive the extra money if the automatic expiration remains in the legislation.

House members nonetheless voted 62-7 for HB 1018 with the Greenfield amendment. The legislation now goes to the Senate.

Greenfield, who noted that his parents were watching the debate from the House gallery, said the purpose of the amendment was to have the Senate take off the House amendment off, thereby requiring that the Senate send the bill to the House for a second look.

“That’s a lot of money we’re contemplating here in a few short moments,” Greenfield said.

House Democratic leader Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton said accepting the amendment was breaking faith with the intent of Congress.

State Labor Department officials are counting on the extra $11.7 million so that the money doesn’t have to come from South Dakota businesses.

zThe expanded benefits are expected to cost about $800,000 annually.

The Labor Department paid $1.6 million in benefits during the week that ended Feb. 6, according to Rep. Tim Rounds, R-Pierre.

He said, for comparison, the amounts paid for the corresponding week were $1.4 million in 2009 and less than $800,000 in 2008.

Rounds said South Dakota has borrowed $12.9 million so far from the federal government and the state program’s balance stood at a negative $7 million as of early February.

“We should have had this (legislation) here last year,” Rep. Quinten Burg, D-Wessington Springs, said about the benefits expansion.