Heading into their 2025 legislative session, which starts in January, North Dakota lawmakers will consider dozens and dozens of bills dealing with property taxes. That makes sense because despite a ballot measure aimed at abolishing property taxes face planting on the statewide ballot, North Dakotans are not satisfied with the status quo.
What property tax reform and relief will look like coming out of this legislative session is an open question, but Senate Majority Leader David Hogue told Chad Oban and me on this episode of Plain Talk that there is one certainty.
"There will be caps," he said.
Which is to say, lawmakers will be capping property tax increases, though Hogue explained that how those caps will be structured will be an open debate. Will the caps apply to all local spending or only that funded by property taxes? Will the caps be a flat percentage or tied to inflation? We'll see, but after years of demuring on caps, won over, Hogue said, by the local control argument, the Legislature is ready to get it done.
Hogue also spoke about steps the Legislature plans to take to strengthen its oversight role in policy. The majority leader says the plan is to move dozens of executive branch officials who evaluate policy to the legislative branch. Which makes sense. If the Legislature wants to measure the success or failure of a given policy, it might not make a lot of sense to get that analysis from someone working for an agency head who lobbied for the policy in the first place.
This move is also aimed at addressing the challenges presented by term limits. Now that the legislature is going to see more turnover, by law, it's going to be losing some level of institutional knowledge. Moving these workers to the legislative branch serves as a buttress to that brain drain.
Hogue also spoke to impending debates over state jail and prison populations and state-provided mental health services, including the push to build a new state hospital in Jamestown, which he said is far too expensive.
Also on this episode, Oban and I discuss Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong's decision to appoint Democrat (and erstwhile Plain Talk gust host) Rep. Corey Mock to his administration, and provide some local analysis of President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet choices.
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