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Letter: Reserve half of North Dakota’s Legacy Fund for everyone

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Letter: Reserve half of North Dakota’s Legacy Fund for everyone


This proposal is straightforward: allocate half of the cash within the oil Legacy Fund to all of the eligible residents of North Dakota and their dependents, unfold out over a very long time.

There’s at the moment virtually $8.3 billion within the fund, which quantities to virtually $11,000 for each individual within the state.

Gov. Doug Burgum

and the North Dakota Legislature are at the moment promising to

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allocate a number of the Legacy Fund as both revenue tax or property tax aid

as a result of, even with their allocations to particular person initiatives, the fund retains rising. Nevertheless, each proposals present essentially the most cash to the wealthiest of North Dakotans. Those that help property tax aid moderately than revenue tax aid body that help as aiding the farmers, who in lots of circumstances deserve that aid, however there are additionally virtually 4,200 residence buildings within the state whose homeowners are usually close to the highest of the state revenue earners and who would obtain an outsized profit from that aid.

As an alternative, present $300 of aid every year to each eligible North Dakotan and their dependents. Individually, it is not an enormous sum of cash, however the quantity permits the Legacy Fund to maintain supporting this system for 18 years with none extra income and even longer with the extra anticipated oil income. A 6% return on that half of the fund would preserve this system solvent ceaselessly.

Its simplicity is that it would not require an elaborate algorithm for eligibility and impacts all. Your annual distribution from the fund could be based mostly upon your North Dakota tax return which not solely determines your residency and citizenship however counts your dependents. In the event you owe the state cash, it will be deducted from that fee; when your allocation exceeds the tax, a refund could be issued. Even those that at the moment don’t file as a result of they do not attain the minimal revenue threshold would get a direct monetary profit for submitting.

Elected officers of each events pay lip service to “household values,” however this program would supply extra monetary help for these with bigger households. Larger households could be rewarded.

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What number of occasions have you ever heard our elected officers level to these on a set revenue as ones who’re most impacted by monetary onerous occasions? These people would get their aid identical to everybody else; a small monetary aid, however one none the much less.

I’ve by no means heard of a landlord saying, “I simply acquired property tax aid. I feel I will refund it to my tenants.” This program would supply just a little little bit of aid to those that lease.

Fargo

and Grand Forks have lower than 45% house possession. Minot and Dickinson have 45% rental charges; even 35% of Bismarck’s inhabitants rents. The cash could be appreciated.

Elected officers usually reward veterans and members of the navy. If the reward is honest, allocate a further quantity of aid to those that served. If first responders deserve reward, do it financially.

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The state structure at the moment protects the Legacy Fund; solely revenue generated by the fund can be utilized. Nevertheless, our legislators might change the language to permit entry when the funding revenue doesn’t match the distribution from the fund.

This proposal would nonetheless go away over $4 billion for the particular initiatives that the legislature deems necessary. If the need is to fund extra revenue or property tax aid from that half of the fund, accomplish that. It certain looks like a win-win to me!

Thomas Vesel is a resident of Fargo.

This letter doesn’t essentially replicate the opinion of The Discussion board’s editorial board nor Discussion board possession.





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North Dakota

Reliance of North Dakota producers on migrant workers

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Reliance of North Dakota producers on migrant workers


MINOT, N.D. (KMOT) – Farmers and ranchers work with their hands, but sometimes the biggest issue is not having enough.

President-elect Donald Trump will soon be taking office and bringing changes to immigration laws.

When needing an extra hand, producers seek assistance from migrant workers.

These workers go through the H-2A program, granting temporary employment for performing agricultural labor.

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Ag Commissioner Doug Goehring said in 2023, North Dakota received 4,600 migrant workers, and that number is expected to grow.

“The margins are even slimmer, so now you have to produce more and you have to produce more acres because of what’s happened with family living,” said Goehring.

He said concerns in the agriculture community aren’t necessarily about immigration, but rather with the Department of Labor, with producers facing lengthy wait periods for paperwork to go through.

“I brought these issues to Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture at that time, he actually helped streamline the process,” said Goehring.

He said the public sometimes conflates the issues of illegal immigration and of legal migrants following the correct steps to work here.

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“Sometimes the public doesn’t quite understand that, so they think H-2A workers are some of the illegals that are coming across the border. They’re not,” said Goehring.

Goehring added he hopes issues with backlogs in the Labor Department will change when the new administration takes over.

Goehring also addressed the concern of migrant workers taking jobs from American citizens.

He said the processes migrants and employers go through allows plenty of opportunities for American citizens to apply and be hired.

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North Dakota bill targets Game and Fish Department’s CWD management efforts

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North Dakota bill targets Game and Fish Department’s CWD management efforts


BISMARCK – A bill introduced Monday, Jan. 13, in the North Dakota Legislature would prevent the Game and Fish Department from using hunting and fishing license dollars or application fees for research or management related to chronic wasting disease.

Introduced by

Reps. Bill Tveit, R-Hazen,

and

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Dori Hauck, R-Hebron,

HB 1236

would require that the department use license and application fees only for programs and administration not related to CWD.

“Hunting and fishing license fees and application fees … may be used only for department programs and administration unrelated to chronic wasting disease,” the bill states.

Sens.

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Mark Enget, R-Powers Lake,

and

Paul Thomas, R-Velva,

are carrying the legislation in the Senate.

The bill marks the

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second proposed legislation so far this session

to limit the Game and Fish Department in its efforts to manage CWD, a neurological disease that is always fatal to deer, elk and moose. On Jan. 7,

Sen. Keith Boehm, R-Mandan,

introduced

SB 2137,

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a bill that would prevent the Game and Fish Department from prohibiting or restricting the use of supplemental feed on private land – a practice more commonly known as baiting – for big game hunting. A similar bill was introduced during the 2023 legislative session and overwhelmingly passed the House before being narrowly defeated in the Senate during the closing days of the session.

SB 2137 has its first committee hearing at 10:20 a.m. Friday, Jan. 17, before the Senate Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Committee. Anyone interested in

submitting testimony on the bill

can do so on the North Dakota legislative branch website at ndlegis.gov and doing a search for SB 2137 in the “Find a bill” window. A hearing for HB 1236 hadn’t been scheduled as of Tuesday morning.

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Brad Dokken joined the Herald company in November 1985 as a copy editor for Agweek magazine and has been the Grand Forks Herald’s outdoors editor since 1998.

Besides his role as an outdoors writer, Dokken has an extensive background in northwest Minnesota and Canadian border issues and provides occasional coverage on those topics.

Reach him at bdokken@gfherald.com, by phone at (701) 780-1148 or on X (formerly Twitter) at @gfhoutdoor.





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Bill proposes new office to regulate guardianships across North Dakota

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Bill proposes new office to regulate guardianships across North Dakota


BISMARCK — North Dakota legislators heard testimony on a bill that would overhaul the way guardianships and conservatorships are overseen — something the judiciary has been working toward for more than a decade.

Senate Bill 2029

would create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship with broad powers to oversee such matters statewide. The office would license and maintain a registry of professional guardians and conservators, set regulations and policies, oversee legal and disciplinary actions, and manage state funding for guardianship and conservatorship programs.

Those in support of the bill believe it will address the shortage of guardians and conservators facing North Dakota while enforcing greater accountability. Those in opposition to the bill are concerned it will syphon funds from existing programs.

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Chief Justice Jon Jensen said the creation of the Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship was a main priority of the legislative session for the state Supreme Court during his recent

State of the Judiciary address.

According to South Central District Judge Cynthia Feland, who testified in favor of the bill, the state currently has no licensing program for professional guardians and conservators, making it difficult to monitor who is claiming to be a professional and what their qualifications are.

South Central District Judge Cynthia Feland gives testimony during a hearing about Senate Bill 2029, which proposes an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship, in the Peace Garden Room at the North Dakota Capitol on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025.

Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune

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President of the Guardianship Association of North Dakota Margo Haut, who testified against the bill, said that guardians are already required to obtain a national certification from the Center of Guardianship Certification and must be certified by the state courts system to act as a guardian in North Dakota.

Feland said the licensing component of the bill is important because complaints against guardians and conservators are handled on a case-by-case basis in the court system. Feland said this has created instances in which a professional guardian is removed from a case for misconduct without any mechanism to investigate other cases they are handling. The proposed bill would fix this, according to the judge.

“If we now have a procedure for licensing and we can remove them, then notification goes throughout the state to all of the district courts that this person’s license has been revoked,” she said.

If a guardian’s license is revoked, Feland said the Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship would be able to find other guardians to step in and take over the cases from the de-licensed guardian.

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Donna Byzewski is the program director of the corporate guardianship program for people with intellectual disabilities at Catholic Charities North Dakota. She said during her neutral testimony that she was concerned the budgets of guardianship services would be devastated by legal costs when guardians were brought before the proposed office’s review board.

Byzewski did, however, say the bill would give the court tools to protect people in the case of exploitation or neglect by a guardian and remove the offending guardian in a timely manner, something that has taken months — if not years — to accomplish previously.

Feland said the judiciary is already preparing to implement the office should the bill pass.

“I don’t wait for this stuff to pass. We’re doing it now. So as we are speaking right now, we are actually putting together the rules for the Supreme Court to create these things” Feland said. “This is a problem that’s been there for over a decade and is getting worse. So the best way, then, to resolve it is to start doing these things right away.”





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