North Dakota’s Legislative Pre-Session Dominated by Governor’s Budget Address
This week Governor Doug Burgum (R) laid out his 2019-2021 executive budget. In his address to lawmakers, he proposed a record amount of $14.3 billion in total revenues and expenditures, with $4.6 billion for the general fund; this would be made possible in part by $1 billion in oil tax revenue. The budget that was passed into law in 2017 for the current biennium was $13.6 billion with $4.3 billion in general fund spending after the legislature cut $1.7 billion from the general fund due to sagging commodity prices.
The proposal dedicates nearly $200 million for continued research in agriculture, oil and gas and lignite, $112 million for increased salaries to state employees, a two percent bump in K-12 spending for each year of the new biennium and $90 million more for higher education. He also proposed $300 million in legacy projects, which includes $55 million for an infrastructure revolving loan fund for local entities, $50 million for the future Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora that requires a private match from the National Park Service and $30 million tracking network for unmanned aircraft systems.
The governor has continued to prioritize workforce recruitment and retention, as he believes that this is a barrier to the state’s economic growth and the impetus for the administration’s Main Street Initiative. The governor strengthened the state’s Workforce Development Council and commissioned an employer survey to identify obstacles to fill the state’s estimated 30,000 job openings. The council recommended $30 million in competitive grants for career academies, $2 million for workforce development initiatives and $3 million for marketing to address the talent attraction and retention challenges throughout the state by promoting the state’s high quality of life.
The budget also recommends restructuring the state’s IT management by moving 17 cabinet agencies into one shared IT service. This would be accomplished through an incremental investment of $16.4 million to centralize the state’s approach to cybersecurity and better guard against approximately 5.6 million cyberattacks each month.