NDACo Legislative Update: April 23

Legislators did not reach adjournment this week as they hoped. The disagreements are now fewer, but possibly more contentious. Also, as the news media has reported, the Governor vetoed three bills, which then requires both chambers to debate and vote all over again – all of which involves considerable time. Tuesday or Wednesday of next week is now more likely for adjournment “sine die”. Once we reach this milestone, your Legislative team will be working to compile and refine the results of the entire session to present at our Legislative Wrap-up on May 10th.

Last week’s new proposal for the NDPERS BILL (SB2046) for closing the NDPERS Defined Benefit plan consumed much of the week. Recognizing the strong opposition of local government to this unknown increase in unfunded liability, the final amendment DID NOT change the local government portion of NDPERS retirement.

The amendment ultimately adopted would close the Defined Benefit (DB) or pension plan to new STATE employees January 1, 2023. New state employees would be provided a defined contribution or DC retirement plan like a 401K. The amendment segregates the reserves and liabilities associated with state employees separately from those associated with local government employees. The amendment would appropriate $100 million and inject a “stream” of Legacy Fund interest to bolster the DB plan for those “legacy” state employees that would remain in the DB plan through retirement. An intensive study and actuarial analysis of both the state employee portion and the local government portion of the fund would be completed by November 1, 2021, so that the information would be ready for the Legislative redistricting session late this year. In the meantime, the local government employers and employees would see an increase in retirement contributions of ½% of salary each to move this part of the fund toward solvency. Should this bill pass, county officials will need to be very engaged in this study and analysis, as the Legislature will be looking to us (counties, cities, schools, parks) for direction for “our portion” of the retirement system.

Also, in the news this week, was the Governor’s signing of HB1341 that for the first time in a very long time authorizes a significant state bonding program. This concept would use a portion of Legacy Fund earnings (interest) to service a bond of $680 million, much of which would be used for major state water projects. The Governor explained that by getting these major projects “off the table”, the resources trust fund would be able to better fund the smaller water projects statewide – this fund is also enhanced by bond proceeds of $74.5 million. $50 million of the bond would go to enhance the infrastructure loan fund which is available to cities and counties and $70 million would go to NDDOT to leverage additional federal funds for road and bridge construction. The final $50 million of the bond would go to build the agriculture products development center at NDSU.

Still “hanging fire” is the “streams” proposal (HB1380) which includes the $64.3 million biennial injection into the Highway Distribution Fund. The Senate is very solid on retaining this stream, and the entire Transportation Coalition is working on increasing House support.

The Transportation Coalition has also been instrumental in the immediate township road support that was added to the OMB Budget (HB1015) in the Senate. The legislature recognized that townships in North Dakota do not qualify for federal Relief/Stimulus funding and have therefore proposed $5000/township for non-oil counties and then $20 million to NDDOT specifically for township road and bridge grants. Importantly, both parts of this funding would also go to counties on behalf of unorganized townships. There is considerable support for this in the House, and efforts continue to maintain it through the conference committee process.

The Governor held a bill signing event for HB1435 which provides health insurance to the spouse and children of an emergency responders who die in the line of duty. We had several Sheriffs and other first responders who attended the ceremony. 

The House approved the conference committee's work on SB2144, which made changes to the criminal trespass code. The bill now provides law enforcement officer who responds to the call of trespassing with options in dealing with the event and allows prosecutors options to charge based on the extent of the crime. 

House and Senate conference committee members met to review Senate floor amendments made to HB 1183 regarding onsite septic systems. Local public health units supported the amendment which provided equal representation on an onsite wastewater recycling technical committee comprised of Gubernatorial appointees from local public health and installers. The amendment replaced the House bill of three local public health representatives and four installers. A second amendment placing an end date on the bill was also supported by local public health. The final version lists the technical committee makeup of three local public health representatives, four installers and one licensed environmental health practitioner. The ending date was replaced with a report to Legislative Management before November 1, 2022. HB 1183 as amended was subsequently passed by both Chambers.

HB 1253, the major election reform bill, was resolved in conference committee Thursday. County Auditors weighed in heavily on post-election deadlines that were dramatically shortened. The committee yesterday approved: changing the county canvassing board meeting date to 13 days after the election. The deadline to add new voters will be before the meeting of the canvassing board, or 13 days. And the deadline to post voter history is before the end of the contest period allowed under section 16.1-16-04 = if recount (18 days after the election) or (27 days after the election) if no recount.

Language offered in the Senate to help address unintended consequences of HB 1256 (which prohibits the use of nonpublic dollars for elections) was kept in the bill. Allowing counties to be allowed to use donations for use of facilities for polling places, food for poll workers and other nonmonetary donations that are not used to prepare, process, mark, collect or tabulate ballots or votes. However, violation of this section is a Class A misdemeanor. 

The Secretary of State’s office requested the committee to include a penalty for Auditors not prepared for the canvassing as a Class A misdemeanor. We were successful in convincing the committee to not include that language.