Conference committee debates amendments to Senate Bill 2282 raising childcare tax credit, adding residency and 10‑mile limit

A Senate-House conference committee reviewed House amendments to Senate Bill No. 2282 on Thursday, saying the House raised the employer childcare tax credit to 50% and added residency and a 10‑mile radius requirement for eligible childcare providers.

Representative Foss, speaking for the House, said the changes aimed to focus the measure on attracting workers to North Dakota: "this was a workforce recruitment bill. And so we are really trying to, you know, gain employees, in this state, in North Dakota." Foss said the House increased the credit from 30% to 50% of aggregated childcare contributions.

Committee members pressed the House on two core changes: a requirement that a "qualified employee" live in North Dakota and a 10‑mile limit on where an eligible childcare provider may be located. Senator Rummel asked why the House placed any mileage restriction at all if the bill's purpose is workforce recruitment. "If it's a workforce issue, we're glad to have whoever comes and works here in the state of North Dakota," Rummel said.

Representative Doctor acknowledged the change was a compromise intended to overcome committee resistance. "We we had some, committee members that were resisting, and we just we just came up with 10 miles. Just so then we get the bill out and pass. There's no magic," Doctor said.

Members raised administrative concerns about the 10‑mile rule. One committee member noted that state tax officials would need to determine whether each employer's credit claim met the mileage test, adding administrative complexity. Representative Foss agreed the point was valid: determining whether a provider fell within 10 miles would put the Tax Department in a position to make distance determinations on credits.

Lawmakers debated whether the residency requirement would undercut the bill's workforce goals in border communities. Representative Fox and others noted many workers live across state lines in Minnesota but commute to jobs in Fargo and other North Dakota cities. "So again, with the workforce issue we're dealing with, we're gonna disqualify everybody outside the state of North Dakota right across the border from Fargo and Moorhead," Fox said, citing Moorhead, Wahpeton and East Grand Forks as examples of cross-border commuting patterns.

Senator Powers argued the credit had not been widely used when it was set at 30% in a prior legislative session and said raising it to 50% was intended to increase take-up. "This bill was in the 68 legislator and they failed to entice employers to use it at 30%. That's why it went up to 50%." Powers added that the measure should remain simple so employers will use it.

The committee did not adopt any formal changes or votes during the session. Members agreed to continue discussions and schedule another meeting to resolve the residency and mileage provisions and other outstanding details. Representative Doctor said the House would "have another meeting and we can come back and and work on this." Several members also discussed reducing the number of committee participants to facilitate agreement.

The conference committee discussion left several implementation questions unresolved in the transcript: whether the 10‑mile measurement is road miles or straight-line distance is not specified; how the state Tax Department would operationalize mileage determinations is not specified; and whether employers that pay employees who live in neighboring states but work in North Dakota would qualify under any revised language is not resolved.

The committee session closed with members agreeing to reconvene to "get this hammered out and get it passed," as Representative Doctor put it.