January 7,, 2017
Legislative Report from Rep. Rick Holman, ND District 20.

By the time you read this we will have completed the first week of the 65th meeting of the North Dakota Legislative Assembly.  As a result it the November election with half the districts up for election, there are a lot of new faces, about 25 in the House. Over the past two elections about a third of the of the House seats have seen a new person elected. So much for term limits. Elections seem to take care of any need for frequent changes.

A second major change is that of a new governor.  For the first time in many years the governor is not someone who previously served in a governmental role. John Hoeven was previously head of the Bank of North Dakota while Jack Dalrymple had served in the legislature for many years. In early December we were presented with Governor Dalrymple’s proposed budget for the two year period starting July first of 2017. A few days later, newly elected Governor Burgum was sworn in. Earlier this week, we heard from him and are anxiously awaiting any recommended changes that may come from his administration.

Some areas important to our District 20 that need watching are with the amount of funding for nursing care since we have three Skilled Care nursing homes in Hillsboro, Mayville, and Hatton. There is a proposal for a 5% provider tax to help with funding, but we’ll need to carefully examine the details of how this is carried out. These facilities care for and employ our neighbors and friends. We need to insure their viability.

Higher Education will also require close attention. A recommendation for Mayville State has no increase in the budget with a small increase in tuition. One area that has been successful in raising scholarship money over the past four years called a Challenge Grant has been cut from 28 million to 3 million in the proposed budget. I’d like to see that come back before the end of the session.

The Department of Transportation has received quite a bit of additional funding over the past four years. In our sparsely populated state, dependent on agriculture and energy production good roads are of utmost importance. For the last two sessions, extra funding has been provided, but with the decreased income from sales tax which is our main source of state funding we’ll have to return to what was done previously.

Also, over the past several years, state funding for K-12 schools has been increased by the state picking up a greater share of the per-pupil cost by reducing local property taxes. The proposed budget has this continuing, but this time partially relying on the extra dollars available because of the passage of Measure 2 in the November election.

Over the past few years, there have been several infrastructure projects. New state owned facilities have been put up in many areas. The new medical school facility at UND is a good example 120 Million and all paid for. If you have not visited the Heritage Center on the Capital Campus you need include that in a visit to Bismarck. The upcoming budget will have only one new building, that at Valley City State. In the new budget, other big projects are with Transportation (725 Million), Water Projects (319 Million) and School District Loan Fund (200 Million).

In most cases, the austerity of the new budget will see more reductions in staffing than increases. For example, the Health Department proposal cuts one employee and has only a small increase in total budget, but adds 17 staff and 7 million dollars to take care of administering the new Marijuana Law passed in the fall election. Likewise, Human Services, the largest state department with 2200 employees, will see a budget increase from 3.6 Billion to 3.8 Billion but the state’s share of that will be almost the same.

Over the next four months, I will be reporting on a regular basis. You can read the reports in the local paper, on my Facebook page, (rholman2@facebook.com), Rick’s Reflections at rickhol.blogspot.com,  or through email, (rholman111@gmail.com). If you’re in Bismarck during the week, look me up and I’ll be home most weekends. Don’t be afraid to call or text (701) 238-1124 at any time.  If I’m busy, I’ll call you back. Rick