House Approves State Budget Bills

Representatives have picked up the pace this week in getting through state agency  budget bills. 

The Department of Transportation budget includes the closure of eight rural maintance section sites and a number of rural drivers license sites. The bill authorizes DOT to negotiate with counties to lease the 8 shops. The shops to be closed are located in New England, Starkweather, Fessenden, Courtenay, Gackle, Litchville, Finley and Mayville.
On top of the major reduction of employees, there are zero dollars for one time funding for 2017-2019 biennium. In total, the budget decreases from $2.7 billion to $1.2 billion.

Another budget bill with county implications is the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation budget. Their budget includes provisions that are recommendations from the Justice Reinvention study done during the interim. Six behavior health specialists will be added to develop community based programs. Representative Jon Nelson told fellow House members that 75% of inmates at the state pen need behavioral health services. 

The bill also allows options to the Prison and local correctional facilities to better manage their inmate population. This would allow facilities to prioritize their population and consider programs for alternatives to housing inmates in the jail or prison. 

Probably one of the most concerning provisions, from the counties perspective, is the prioritization of the admission of inmates to DOCR. DOCR may refuse to admit inmates sentenced to DOCR when they are at capacity. This means that even though the inmate has been sentenced to the prison, they will continue to be held at the county or regional jail. 

Senate Finance and Tax Amends Cap Bill

The threat of capping local governments drew in officals representing cities, cointies, parks and schools to testify in opposition to HB 1361.

The Senate Finance and Tax committee took action on the bill today after amending the bill. While the amended bill is an improvement, it still is of significant concern. It removes the flat, across the board cap that limits taxing districts to raise taxes no more than 3% without a vote - replacing it with a citizen petition process that would institute a 3% cap (in a county, city, or park district) approved by the voters in a June election.

This petition would require signatures equal to 10% of the votes cast in that jurisdiction at the last general election, and if approved, the property taxes for that jurisdiction would be capped for one year.

Additionally, counties will be required to report additional information to the tax department from which they will prepare a jurisdiction-level report on annual tax increases.

This bill - HB1361 - may be on the Senate floor as early as Tuesday.

Feel free to contact your Senators to tell them how this would negatively impact your county.

NDACo Legislative Report #14

Well today (Friday) is the 59^th day of the Session, and if the Legislature is serious about adjourning in less than 80 days, they have less than 3 weeks to go.  While most bills have been reported out of committee, a few have not yet made the transition. A number of the “big agency budgets” are still seeing committee work, and a few significant policy bills haven’t seen a committee recommendation.  On the “county priority list”, those in this category include:

HB1361 – Property Tax Caps

HB1178 – SIRN – Interoperable radio funding

SB2344 – Medical Marijuana

HB1012 – DHS Budget

SB2004 – Health Dept. Budget – public health funding

SB2015 – DOCR Budget

HB1015 – OMB Budget – Public Administrator Funding

We have seen some proposed amendments to the “cap bill”, and so far we are encouraged that it will be amended into more of a research and reporting bill.  We expect to see this come out of committee early next week.

We remain hopeful that the SIRN funding proposal will NOT be amended in the Senate, so that a straight up or down vote on the Senate floor will decide its fate.

The rewrite of the medical marijuana initiated measure remains a difficult balancing act for the committee, as they try to make it workable without facing a referral effort by the measure supporters.  We continue to work to allow reasonable controls within local government.

Of course the big news of the week has already been reported on this blog, and was the subject of our recent “Common Ground” publication.  The Chairman of the House Finance and Taxation Committee surprised that committee on Wednesday with amendments for SB2206 (Social Service Funding) that replaced the entire bill with another 2-year study of the issue.  As keeping the bill alive for conference committee debate is our last and best hope for this proposal, we are, of course, hoping for its passage.  That said, we are asking all county officials to take every opportunity to urge their Senators and Representatives to restore the proposal and work for “sustainable property tax relief through social service funding.”  Only with significant pressure on the entire legislature is it likely that the conference committee will return the bill to the floor in an acceptable manner.

Also this week (Thursday) saw the (hopefully) final resolution of the Recorders’ “fee bill” requested by the abstract industry.  After several attempts at trying to work “around” the recorders, the Political Subdivisions Committee told the industry to come back with something that the Recorders agree will not shift costs to property tax payers.  It looks like that has finally happened.  It was great to see a sizeable contingent of recorders in the capitol to make it happen.

Both the House and Senate began appointing conference committees on Thursday, and much of next week will be devoted to ironing out the differences between the two bodies.  Only one bill (below) is scheduled for a formal hearing next week, although there will be plenty of action in appropriations committees and in the conferences if you are interested. 

Don’t hesitate to email our team with questions, and make sure your own legislators know how you feel. 

Monday 4/3 10:30

HB 1436

NDPERS Health to be self-insured

Senate GVA

Sheyenne River Rm

Justice Reform Bills Pass House and Senate

Based on an increasing demand for prison space, the legislature has undertaken a number of criminal justice reforms. The legislature began a comprehensive review of North Dakota's jail and prison system in the interim with the effort primarily being overseen by the Council of State Governments. CSG began by reviewing data from both county jails and the North Dakota State penitentiary. The end result was the criminal justice system is a poor substitute for local mental health and chemical treatment options. In attempt to address that result, the legislature offered many bills this session which contained modifications to North Dakota's statutes.

Many of those bills became a step closer to reality today after the Senate approved many of the changes previously adopted by the House. HB 1041 is the signature bill of this effort which focuses on ensuring defendant's are eligible for good time even when serving sentences at local jails. Additionally, 1041 requires judges to sentence defendants convicted on the lowest level felonies to be first sentenced to probation as opposed to sending them into prison or jail. This clause has become known as "presumptive probation." Judges are allowed to deviate from such probation if they find the defendant has demonstrated some aggravating factors which would justify incarceration. The bill also reduces drug offense levels for both the drug itself and the accompanying paraphernalia.

SB 2149 also got one step closer to passage today after receiving Senate approval. SB 2149 is also aimed at reducing sentences for drug offenses and in particular those accused of dealing drugs. However, instead of lowering penalties for drug dealers, 2149 simply reduces (roughly by half) the minimum mandatory sentences which will allow courts to ultimately determine the sentence.

What effect these bills will have on the State or County's bottom line is too early to tell but one thing for certain is both sides of the isle support efforts to reduce incarceration.

Social Service Funding Plan Suffers Setback in House Tax Committee

The House Finance and Tax Committee stripped the only tool this Legislative Session that addresses the delivery of permanent property tax relief to the citizens of North Dakota. Committee members adopted an amendment prepared for Representative Al Carlson which essentially turns the bill into another two year study of the social service funding plan. The amendment instructs the Department of Human Services to develop an implementation plan for the eventual state funding of county social services during the 2017-18 interim. 

“This is a very disappointing day,” commented Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the North Dakota Association of Counties. “We worked very hard to make this plan acceptable to the Legislative body. Numerous representatives from the state tax department, state human service department, legislators, county commissioners and county social service directors spent the last two years diligently looking at how this could work. We felt this was a solid plan.”

Chairman Craig Headland told his committee it is the legislature’s intent to move forward with this plan but a number of details in how this plan would be implemented still need to be flushed out, which can be done by further studying the issue. “Without knowing what is happening with our revenues, I don’t believe it is the right time to do it,” said Headland.

The study is to identify options for efficiencies with the take-over of the funding. Many committee members pointed out how counties are already finding efficiencies and sharing services. 

Representative Jason Dockter pointed to the proposed formula in SB 2206 as driving efficiencies over time. “I hope the legislature intends to move forward on funding mandates we require at some point,” emphasized Representative Ben Koppleman.  

Johnson added, “I really don’t know how we can study this issue any further. This is a drastic departure from what several parties were trying to accomplish this session by finding  an ‘off ramp’ from the unpredictable growth of the 12 percent buy-down of property taxes and instead deliver property tax relief in a much more meaningful and predictable fashion. This essentially ‘kicks the can down the road’ for another two years. What is unfortunate is that the people of North Dakota will be missing out from having property tax relief delivered in this method if this amendment is passed.”

The amendment replaces all the prior language in SB 2206. It will go to the full House for its approval. Because the House version is different from the version approved in the Senate, this bill will more than likely go to conference committee where members from each chamber will work on a compromise. NDACo will work diligently to work to restore the bill to something more similar as to what was introduced and passed in the Senate. 
The amendment can be found at this link: which can be viewed by following this link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4bYba4CUTL1SUFDSEhnWEJNWmM

Hear reaction from NDACo Exec. Director, Mark Johnson below:

NDACo Legislative Report #13

A busy week, but not much to show for it.  Lots of committee work and a fair amount of “floor session” but not a lot of progress. 

Not of direct county concern, but of some historical interest, was House floor action on a city bill.  The cities requested the introduction of a bill to create a tiered structure for emergency levies, very similar to what was passed by the counties several sessions ago.  It would have allowed smaller cities to levy a greater number of mills, and retain a larger balance (in mills) in their emergency fund.  The interesting part was the bill was defeated on Monday by one vote, reconsidered and passed on Tuesday by one vote, and then reconsidered again and defeated by 2 votes on Wednesday.  Few can recall such a sequence of events.

Things like that, as well as debates over casino gaming, guns, and day care kept the Legislature from moving along as fast as leadership had hoped.  The goal of ending in 70 days is becoming less of a reality.

On the county front we saw two bills regarding indigent burial bills pass with one of the county amendments attached, but not the other.  Concerns remain as to how this will impact county costs going forward.

More positively, the House passed the Senate bill raising the public improvement bid limit for advertising from $100,000 to $150,000. This is now on the Governor’s desk.

The repeal of the “Truth in Taxation” notice requirement, and its replacement with a consolidated “preliminary tax estimate and meeting notice” was passed by the House (77-14) and the Senate immediately concurred.  This now goes to the Governor.

The Recorder fee bill (SB2340) was sent out of committee in a form that the county recorders felt was lacking, and it was rereferred to the Political Subdivisions Committee next week for more work. This bill was not requested by the Recorders and proposes more of a flat fee structure that has somewhat of an unknown impact to county revenues.

A major setback for the statewide radio project (SIRN) funding came as the state share of the project (SB2024) was defeated on the House floor after a half hour of debate.  This bill proposed a doubling of the penalties for traffic violations to go into a separate fund to support this major infrastructure improvement.  The “local share” remains alive in the Senate as a 50-cent phone charge in HB1178.

A few of the major bills still in committee include:

                Social Service Funding (SB2206)

                Caps on local property taxes (HB1361)

                County retention of penalties for “fat trucks” on county roads (SB2045)

                DOCR Budget – State authority to refuse inmates (SB2015)

                OMB Budget – public administrator funding (HB1015)

                Sec. of State Budget – possible inclusion of election equipment funding (HB1002)

Although the schedule below indicates very few hearings, there will be unpublished “rehearings” as legislation affecting the state’s budget get referred from policy committees to appropriations throughout the week.  There will also be a lot of quiet committee work as the more difficult issues become the focus.

Keep your legislators informed as they come home on weekends, and let them know how you feel about the issues.  The (very brief) hearing schedule on county bills follows.

Time	Bill			Committee	Room Top of Form Top of Form
Monday, 3/27
9:00	HB 1436	E *	NDPERS Health to be self-insured	House Industry, Business and Labor	Peace Garden
9:30	HB 1040	J **	D/A education - alcohol crimes by minors - funding for children's' behavioral health services	Senate Appropriations	Harvest
Tuesday, 3/28
8:30	HB 1041	J **	Sentence reduction, medical paroles, good time, drug offenses - includes presumptive probation Bottom of Form	Senate Appropriations	Harvest  Bottom of Form

               

Local Zoning Control of Marijuana in Question

Marijuana may be coming to a plot next door and your local city or county may not have a single thing to say about it.

The House Human Service spent most of Tuesday morning receiving testimony, pro and con, for the bill to provide an enhanced regulatory structure for the production and sale of medical marijuana. Generally the bill reduces the number of sites and improves the state's regulatory control over who can operate and where these sites can be located.

However, some committee members want state preemption of local zoning regulations, giving local elected governing boards no say on where in town the distribution center is located, and the county no say on where the marijuana is grown.

Your city and county association representatives are working to preserve local zoning control of this new industry and we urge all local officials to carry this message to your representatives.