ND Legislature Reaches Crossover

Crossover is here! The House finally adjourned late Wednesday, and the legislature will reconvene next Wednesday - March 3rd. 

They collectively addressed 900 bills and resolutions, and over half of those – 485 to be exact – were introduced with some impact on counties or county officials. About 30% of those “county” bills were defeated, but that leaves plenty of county issues for the rest of the session.

As we have been blogging, the three key infrastructure funding bills remain alive, but will need considerable attention in the Senate in the second half.

The two big budgets with the biggest direct impact on counties were both enhanced in ways beneficial to counties. The DHS saw a $13 million increase for zones, and the Dept. of Health budget saw the restoration of $650,000 for local public health.

County financing tools saw considerable attention in the first half of the Session, with two very restrictive bills defeated, and one expanding a county’s ability to bond for road projects.

The NDPERS Retirement Fund was addressed by several proposals to maintain the funds solvency.

Most of these died, but one that would increase both the Employer and the Employee shares by ½ of one percent of salary remains in play. Importantly, the significant pandemic relief currently being debated in Congress promises significant funding to state government, some of which has been discussed as a possible source to make a one-time injection into the NDPERS Retirement Fund.

Two concerning county road policy issues were advanced by the Senate. The “Culvert Bill,” SB2324, shifts the control over when stream crossing improvements must be made in county and township roads was narrowly passed by a 2-vote margin.

The other bill would permit the Governor to use his emergency powers to pilot the use of road trains in North Dakota. These will be priorities as they move to the House.

Liability limits of state and local government were addressed in the House. An OMB bill proposed by the State Risk Pool (the state equivalent of NDIRF) was in response to the defeat of a massive increase in government “tort caps” in 2019. After study, it was agreed that a phased, modest increase in these caps were due, as the “individual limit” of $250,000 has been in place since 1997.

We are very pleased with where we are sitting in regards to property tax issues. Like in past sessions, there are plenty of ideas introduced to restrict property taxes and budgets. We were successful in killing many of the poor bills. It appears lawmakers are hungry for more information on the property tax system and what the legislatures role can be in reducing property taxes as there were several bills turned into studies of our property tax system and budget process.

There were 45 bills impacting elections with many of them focusing on election reform. Many of these bills are reactionary, in response to what lawmakers believe happened nationally – not in North Dakota. We were able to defeat the most concerning bill – which would have eliminated early voting, absentee voting and vote by mail for ND. There were a number of bills seeking to restrict the governor from using his executive order authority to make changes to elections – stemming from the COVID situation and requests that came from Auditors regarding the June election. That bill and many other election issues that we testified in opposition to, are still alive and we will lean on our auditors to help us defeat them on the Senate side. On a positive note, a proposal initiated by the Auditor’s to increase the time to process ballots was approved and will move forward. 

Our Sheriffs were engaged throughout the session and it really paid off. We were able to defeat or assist in amending some concerning bills that could have been detrimental to public safety as well as hindering the Sheriffs duty to serve. A few of these bills include prohibiting law enforcement from entering private property without permission, no bail for misdemeanor crimes along with reducing the mandatory minimum sentencing for violent offenders. In addition, some important public safety initiatives have marched forward including: a correction to the SIRN radios – cost share; primary seatbelts and reimbursement for DOCR inmates sitting in county facilities when the prioritization plan is in effect.

Look for a more in-depth NDACo crossover report to come in the upcoming days. 

Click here for the link to next week's hearing schedule.