Committee hears League of Cities amendment to House Bill 15-37 aimed at protecting long‑standing intergovernmental agreements

The Political Subdivisions Committee on 2023-07-14 heard detailed testimony and questions about amendments to House Bill 15-37 that would change how intergovernmental agreements among cities, rural water districts and the state’s Public Finance Authority are treated in law.

Stephanie Ingebretson, representing the North Dakota League of Cities, presented the amendment and described it as a compromise intended to protect long‑standing agreements while also protecting the public finance authority’s loan security. “The amendment reinstates, and takes out a lot of the amendments to that section of code that were proposed in the original bill,” Ingebretson told the committee. She said the draft removes a retroactivity clause, restores existing language the bill had altered, and changes language that, under a Supreme Court interpretation, had rendered some agreements entirely invalid to language that would make them voidable at the option of the Public Finance Authority or another state…