Legislative Report: Oct. 11, 2021

I attended two Interim Committee meetings on September 30. The first was Legislative Procedures and Arrangements. The purpose of that meeting was to set the framework for the upcoming special session which begins November 8. There was a background memorandum relating to previous special sessions and a discussion about a Joint Technical Corrections Committee.

After adjourning in April, the legislature can call itself back for a reconvened session, or Governor Burgum can call us in for a special session to consider the redistricting bill. There does not seem to be any interest on the part of the Governor to call us in for a special session, so the committee discussed our options for a reconvened session. The legislature must consider the redistricting bill and have it ready for the 2022 election cycle. At this point, the legislature will call a reconvened session using the remainder of our four days. However, those four days can be utilized in a variety of ways, including only gaveling in at times when there is a bill out of committee that is ready for a vote of either the House or Senate.

Also, at this point, two bills will be considered, the redistricting bill, and a bill to distribute the American Rescue Plan Act funds. Nothing has changed there, but there was also discussion on other bills legislators may want to bring forward and how those will impact the timeframe we have to complete our work. The Delayed Bills Committee will consider any bills presented when we convene November 8. It is up to that committee to move any bills out for consideration for the House and Senate. Rather than assigning these prospective bills to an Interim Committee, the committee decided to convene a Joint Technical Correction Committee to hold hearings on these bills.

Other topics for this meeting were cybersecurity retraining for all legislators and a report from Mr. John Boyle on the accessibility improvements to the Capitol. The committee approved a remodeling plan for the Missouri River room from a committee room into three family restrooms. The Missouri River room has not been utilized by the legislators for a couple of sessions, because other meeting rooms have opened up in the Judicial Wing, which allows for more room for the public.

We also heard a report from Legislative Information Technology Manager, Kyle Forster, on updates and cybersecurity training for legislators.

Following that meeting, the Budget Section met in the Senate Chamber to hear reports, updates, and requests. The great news is that revenues are stronger than previously forecasted and are leading to a substantial increase in available funding for the next biennium. We also learned that there was a larger than normal amount of turn back funds from the 19-20 biennium. The two largest were $179 million from the Department of Human Services due to increase of six percent of federal matching money, and $61 million from the Department of Public Instruction due to less than expected average daily membership in K-12 public schools. The total turnback for the past biennium was $337 million, which is one of the largest in recent history. Much of the turnback resulted in the use of Corona Relief Funds which were utilized to pay salary expenses as permitted by the relief fund criteria. These funds return to the general fund and are then placed in the accounts of some of the special funds.

We also approved the Emergency Commission requests to provide for special funds authority to the Department of Career and Technical Education for three separate federal grants they received totaling $640,000, and to the Department of Financial Institutions for $275,000. These awards came forward after the regular legislative session adjourned and approval is needed to spend these dollars.

In addition, we approved the request from Dickinson State University to spend an additional $325,000 of auxiliary and local funds to complete the renovation of Pulver Hall. This authority was approved.

The following are upcoming dates the legislature or appropriations will be meeting to complete the redistricting bill and the distribution of the American Rescue Plan Act funds:

• Appropriations Committee: October 12, 13, 19, 20, 26 and 27

• Legislative Management: November 1

• Reconvening of full legislature: November 8 until work is complete. (There are only four official days left unless the Governor intervenes).

You can follow all of the meetings with live video at http://www.legis.nd.gov and click on “Video” on the upper right corner of that page.

If you have questions or concerns, you can reach me at [email protected] or by calling 701-302-0355.