North Dakota hearing on bill to review and pare state boards draws support and resistance over soil, water and data governance

Senate State and Local Government Committee members heard more than three hours of testimony on Senate Bill 2308 on behalf of the governor's office, which would create a Board Review Task Force to evaluate state boards, commissions and councils and repeal or transfer the duties of dozens of statutory entities.

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Kristen Roars, District 27 of South Fargo, introduced the measure as a governor-backed effort to “right size” state boards. Governor Lehi Armstrong told the committee, “1 priority of our administration is to refocus our efforts in state government to be consumer driven,” and described the task force’s goal as finding boards that could be combined or dissolved to reduce duplicative work and administrative burden.

Proponents and state agency officials said amendments circulated during the hearing would preserve federal funding and move several advisory duties into state departments rather than eliminating programmatic functions. Allison Hicks of the attorney general’s office described an omnibus amendment that, among other changes, moves administration of the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLEDS) into the North Dakota Information Technology Department (NDIT); she said the change was intended to “preserve” interagency data-sharing agreements and maintain continuity for programs now housed in SLEDS.

Kirsten Basler, state superintendent for the Department of Public Instruction, and Corey Mach, chief information officer for NDIT, both supported the amended language…