Legislative Report: Feb. 6, 2023

It’s day 16 here at the Legislature. The deadline for bill introduction has now passed. A total of 951 bills and resolutions have been introduced. Although not a record, it is 78 more than last session.

One of the bills which passed in the committee that I serve on provides for our fire departments to get the insurance premium rebate in full. Over the years, that amount has varied depending on if the state was short of funds. Our fire departments have had to come to each session and ask for the full amount that was intended to go to them. This bill provides that they will receive that amount without having to come to Bismarck to lobby for those dollars every session. By the way, this payment has been in place since 1887. With the cost of equipment going up and with the original intent of the law, it only makes sense.

Another discussion this week is how to get our arms around the budget. It was mentioned to me yesterday that a total of around $2.6 billion in spending is being proposed in various budgets over the Governor’s budget. There will be much trimming necessary to get the budget balanced. This isn’t Washington, and we need to have a balanced budget when we adjourn.

In addition, there have been no final percentage decisions in some key areas. For example, every one percent increase in state employees’ salaries costs about $5.5 million. Every one percent increase in the K-12 education budget costs about $30 million. There will be a lot of effort these coming weeks to get a starting point on both these budgets. They may not be the final numbers, but this will move the process along.

And then we have the tax reduction proposals. I believe there are at least eight proposals affecting property tax. I also know that a couple of proposals in the House deal with income tax reductions. There will be tax reductions; we are just not sure which ones. Stay tuned.