County Social Services Financing Working Group Meets

First ever meeting of the County Social Services Working Group. This group will work on developing a proposed transition plan for transferring the costs of operating social services programs from county property tax levies to state general fund appropriations. Representing counties are: Kim Jacobson, Traill Co Social Services Director; Steve Reiser, McLean Co Social Service Director; Randy Suckut, Wells Co Commissioner; Mike Montplaisir, Cass Co Auditor and Terry Traynor, NDACo. The group will report and assist an interim legislative committee assigned to study this issue. Read the full story here: http://www.ndaco.org/ndaco-news/social-service-funding-task-force-established/

ND Lawmakers Return to Finish Business

Legislators returned to the Capitol to wrap up their work on Senate Bill 2022, the state's Retirement and Investment Office and Public Employees Retirement System budget. Legislators left in May without passing the budget bill due to the House and Senate being unable to reach a compromise. Lawmakers met prior to this week to work on a compromise to present to both the House and Senate chambers. Still, several lawmakers stood up on the floor to criticize the legislative process used to get to this point.

Lawmakers were also given an update on oil tax revenues for the 2015-2017 biennium since oil prices were above the threshold to avoid hitting an oil tax trigger. The Office of Management and Budget says an increase of $527 million in oil taxes can be anticipated due to the trigger not hitting. That figure is based on a production of 1.1 million barrels and the average price of oil in May. The additional revenues will be spread amongst several state funds. The greatest fund to benefit from the additional dollars is the strategic investment and improvements fund which is used to fund infrastructure projects. 

ND House Passes "Waters of the U.S." Resolution

North Dakota House members used the opportunity during their special session to pass a resolution. The resolution urges Congress to invalidate the rules adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Army Corps of Engineers defining the "waters of the United States" under the Clean Water Act. The resolution says the state of North Dakota contains many water resources, the use of which for agriculture, municipal water supply, and economic health is needed and the rules will needlessly complicate and may prohibit the safe and intelligent development and management of the state's water resources.
Representative Craig Headland brought the resolution forward. He told House members, "our property owners should know we have their backs on this. We need to help our delegation. All three of them have issued statements against this rule. We need to be on the record, we need to take this opportunity to show we can not allow this lawlessness stand. This is federal overreach. We don't know the impacts, but it could be devastating to agriculture and industry in North Dakota." The resolution passed the House with a voice vote.
NDACo is also on record opposing the "Waters of the U.S." rule and has sent communication to North Dakota's delegation urging them to oppose the proposal. 

County Studies Prioritized

The Legislative Management Committee struggled to reduce the 111 studies approved by the 64th Legislative Assembly down to a manageable number for the interim.  They started with 16 that were passed as "required" studies, and ended up adding 28 additional studies for a total of 44.

Of these 44 chosen studies, the NDACo staff has identified 30 that have some relationship to county government.  We have grouped those 30 below in general topic areas.  Keep in mind that now the Legislative Management will divide the studies and the legislators up into 15-18 topic committees, so these will likely get sliced and diced in a somewhat different configuration. 

We will post here the committees, studies assigned, and chairman; once the Legislative Management Committee has completed this work.

Mandatory & Optional Interim Studies / 2015-17 Interim
30 County-Related Out of 44 Total Prioritized Studies (111 Total Advanced)
Oil Tax & Allocation Studies
		SB 2015 § 42	Oil and gas tax incentives and oil and gas recovery techniques (Required)
		SB 2318	Oil extraction tax exemptions for tertiary recovery (Required)
		HB 1176  § 6	Oil and gas tax revenue allocations
Highway Issue Studies
		HB 1377	Truck permitting in oil & gas counties (Required)
		HB 1012 § 10	Impacts  of harmonizing truck size and weight regulations (Required)
		SB 2015 § 41	Special transportation funding distributions to political subdivisions
		HB 1020	Feasibility of placing the upper great plains transportation institute under the NDDOT
		SB 2167	The one-call excavation notice system
Justice & Public Safety Studies
		HB 1015  § 4	Petrial services, sentencing alternatives, treatment options, and related issues (Required)
		HB 1165	PEW Research study of public safety, corrections (Required)
		HCR 3006	Use of state resources for youth adjudicated by tribal courts
		HCR 3012	Child sex offender registration
		HB 1004	Acquiring UND forensic pathology center
		HCR 3004	Best practices for forensic death investigation
		HB 1018  § 25	Feasibility of establishing a civilian ground center for processing first responder data
		SCR 4018	Use of seclusion and restraint in schools
Health & Human Services Studies
		SB 2206 § 12	Develop a plan to transfer of 100% of county social service costs to state (Required)
		HB 1378	Essential health delivery & Affordable Care Act (Required)
		SB 2048 § 7	Behavioral health needs
		HB 1279	Family caregiver supports and services
		HCR 3049	Employment and public assistance
		HCR 3003	State employee health insurance premiums
Voting & Election Studies
		HB 1302	Voter registration
		HB 1389	Verification of non-citizens for voting purposes
Water Studies
		SB 2020 § 22	Sustainable water supply to central & eastern North Dakota (Required)
		HCR 3020	Impact on owners from land inundated by rising Devils Lake waters
		HB 1095	Use of quick-take by water boards
Tax Incentive & Exemption Studies
		SB 2057	Economic development incentives (Required)
		SB 2276	Incentives to getting natural gas service to underserved communities
		HB 1401	Sales tax exemption for materials bought by contractor for tax exempt entity

64th Legislative Session Comes to Close

Majority Leader Al Carlson addresses the House of Representatives prior to closing the 64th Legislative Session

The 2015 Legislative Session ended in a very unusual way. Lawmakers adjourned Wednesday afternoon with unfinished business. They failed to act on SB 2022 which relates to the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System. The House and Senate were unable to work out their differences in the budget bill. Research is being done to examine what this will mean for PERS and the 68,000 North Dakota benefactors. Legislators will be called back to resolve the issue if necessary. 

The NDACo Legislative Team is working on a summary to highlight the session from the county perspective. All in all, the session was a positive one for our counties. Many of the priority bills identified by our county official's received action in-line with our position.
Here are just are a few examples:

* Increase in Transportation Funding
* Passage of State Funding for Social Services
* Additional Tax Relief & Tax Reform Issues
* Defeat of:  "Mills to Cents", "Quota" allocation for prison & "Agri-tourism" proposals

Attached is a link to the Legislative Highlights as identified by the Governor's office. http://governor.nd.gov/media-center/news/legislative-highlights-2015

ND Lawmakers Take First Step in Funding Social Services

It's an important day for NDACo and our counties!  Legislators in the House and Senate passed SB 2206 which is the funding for County Social Services. This is an effort county officials have worked on for the past four sessions. This year $23 million was included in the Governor's budget to take over a portion of foster care grants and other programs. These are an expense lawmakers say were an unfunded mandate to counties. The $23 million will be a direct reduction in property taxes at the local level. The dollars are to only be used to directly buy down the social service levy. In addition, a committee will be established to work on the transition plan and to assess the feasibility of taking over additional costs, providing even more property tax relief through social services in the next biennium. We are very grateful to the work of Maggie Anderson and the Department of Human Services, the Governor and the Human Service committee members who we worked on this issue together this session. Attached is a video with comments from Sen. Dick Dever and Traill County Social Service Director Kim Jacobson.

Legislators Summarize Tax Relief

(Center) Senator Dwight Cook, (Left) Rep. Mark Owens, Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger, Sen. Jessica Unruh, Rep. Craig Headland

North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple and State lawmakers highlighted the broad tax relief and reform during a press conference Tuesday. The numerous bills together amounted in nearly $400 million in additional tax relief for North Dakotan's. In addition, several bills addressed tax reform including the Governor's Property Tax Reform plan which examined every levy in state code. Since 2009, the state has reduced property and income taxes by more than $4.2 billion dollars. Here is a summary of the tax reduction plans:

The state’s 2015-2017 tax relief package consists of:

• $250 million in property tax reductions to be provided through a state-paid tax credit during the 2015-2017 biennium. With the continuation of this program, all North Dakota property owners will again receive a 12 percent reduction in property taxes.

• $123 million in individual and corporate income tax relief.
• $23 million in permanent property tax relief provided through a transfer of some social service costs from counties to the state.
• An expansion of the Homestead Tax Credit program for seniors who live on a fixed income. The Legislature appropriated an additional $1.2 million to support increased eligibility for property tax reductions during the second year of the 2015-2017 biennium.  The program will save qualifying North Dakota taxpayers about $21 million during the biennium.