Treasurer, League of Cities back easing reporting for small municipal infrastructure grants

State Treasurer (Treasurer Beetle) presented Senate Bill 2074 to the House Finance and Taxation Committee, proposing to raise the population threshold that triggers a specific municipal reporting requirement for the Municipal Infrastructure Fund (Operation Prairie Dog) and align smaller cities’ reporting with townships.

Nut graf: The bill would exempt municipalities below the threshold from a separate reporting form to the Treasurer’s office for how they spent Prairie Dog funds; those entities would continue to have budget, audit and state-auditor financial-reporting accountability, but not the duplicate targeted municipal report.

Treasurer Beetle said the Municipal Infrastructure Fund distributed $115,000,000 in the 2021–2023 biennium to 315 cities in non-oil-producing counties and that 76% of those dollars went to the 10 largest cities. He said the Treasurer’s office spent hundreds of staff-hours tracking down small cities to meet the current reporting requirement and that 12 cities ultimately failed to file the statutorily required report and were barred from the next distribution under current law.

The proposed change, Treasurer Beetle said, is intended to reduce administrative burden for small cities that often are staffed by volunteers or part-time employees and for which the Treasurer’s office had to do extensive outreach (mail, calls, conference outreach) to obtain reports. He said the change would not remove standard public-accountability protections: municipal budgets, annual audits (or financial-report filing where applicable) and published distributions would remain in place.

Stephanie Ingebretsen of the North Dakota League of Cities testified in support and provided an estimate that the change would affect about 274 cities and roughly 9% of the total municipal allocations (the Treasurer’s written material put total distributions and the breakdown in a chart). Committee members asked how much of the overall money would fall under the new exemption; Treasurer Beetle said it was in the “low teens percent” of total dollars, and Ingebretsen estimated about 9%.

Representative Fosse moved a do-pass recommendation; the motion carried on a roll call with 12 yes, 0 no and 2 absent. The committee later voted to place the bill on the consent calendar.

Ending: The bill would reduce a specialized reporting burden for small municipalities while preserving overall audit and budget transparency for Prairie Dog funds; it advances to the next legislative step with a committee do-pass and placement on the consent calendar.