Bank warns tutoring program unlikely for fall 2026 without procurement exemptions; committee delays means testing

The Appropriations - Education and Environment Division heard on Thursday that the Bank of North Dakota and state agencies likely cannot meet a fall 2026 start date for a proposed private tutoring program unless the Legislature approves procurement waivers and an emergency clause.

The warning came after the division discussed the bill text and an implementation timeline. Kelvin Holett, chief business development officer for the Bank of North Dakota, told the committee the bank and program managers mapped out tasks and found the work would likely take a year to 15 months after a contract is in place. “If we're going to try to make, you know, kind of this work, then we would ask for an exemption, from the state purchasing and then also from the Major Information Technology Project Oversight Committee, to speed up our process,” Holett said.

Committee members pressed staff and the bank on practical steps to meet the schedule and suggested other procedural changes. The committee discussed inserting an emergency clause (which would require a two-thirds vote to take effect immediately) and narrowing procurement requirements to gain as much as two months in the timeline. Several members said even with those changes the window is “very, very tight.”

Senators on the panel also raised the prospect of delaying implementation to the 2027–28 school year if the committee and chambers cannot produce the procedural changes needed. One member told colleagues that, if the committee wants the bill to be workable, they should “draft it as what it needs to be to work,” acknowledging that chambers could later remove or alter those provisions.

Committee staff and members also addressed specific language in the amendment unrelated to mechanics: a placeholder sentence that alleged criminal penalties for fraud. A sponsor and committee staff agreed that existing fraud statutes likely make the placeholder sentence unnecessary. The sponsor instructed staff to remove that sentence from the amendment.

Members did not resolve means-testing or application timing during the division meeting. The committee set further work for the next morning to finalize means-testing language and to assemble the amendment mechanics so the bill could move to full committee.

The division recorded no formal vote on the tutoring program during this session; committee members agreed to draft the amendments discussed and continue consideration at the next meeting.