House panel shifts Hub City Debt Relief Fund into oil-producing counties’ share, reduces appropriation

The Appropriations Committee approved an amendment to Senate Bill 2323 that moves a proposed Hub City Debt Relief Fund out of the state share of the oil-and-gas gross production tax and into the distribution to oil-producing counties, Representative Richter said.

The change shifts the $50 million funding source away from the state 1% share and instead takes the money from the four large oil-producing counties’ distributions; the amendment also reduces the program’s effective allocation to about $10.5 million per year (roughly $21 million per biennium), Representative Richter said. "This bill is to create a Hub City Debt Relief Fund. What the amendment does is it moves the Hub City Debt Relief Fund from the 1% side of the gross production tax to the 4 fifth side," Richter told the…