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Committee reorders valuation priorities for ag land, sets later effective date to allow county work
Summary
House Bill 1508 moves land‑use considerations higher in the valuation statute and the committee amended the bill to make the change effective December 31, 2025; the committee recommended passage as amended.
The House Agriculture Committee voted to recommend passage of House Bill 1508 after approving an amendment that sets the bill’s effective date to Dec. 31, 2025, giving county assessors time to incorporate the change into current valuation cycles.
Sponsor Representative Todd Porter said the bill responds to concerns from landowners in counties that, he said, use soil productivity without consistently factoring land use (for example, cropland versus native pasture) when assessing agricultural property. Porter introduced constituent testimony from Dale Johnson of Mandan, who provided county tax statements and rental‑rate comparisons he said show a marked discrepancy between counties that consider land use and those that do not.
Johnson told the committee a quarter of native pasture in Logan County was taxed more heavily than adjacent cropland because the county relied on soil productivity maps rather than distinguishing land use. “I really think that pasture should be 30 to 50%” of cropland value in comparable soil, Johnson said, and he urged statutory clarity to require counties to apply land use as a valuation factor.
The North Dakota Association of Counties submitted testimony from county tax directors and asked that the bill’s effective date be moved to Dec. 31, 2025 because assessors are already in the 2025 valuation process. The North Dakota Stockmen’s Association and North Dakota Farm Bureau supported the bill, saying consistent application of productivity and land‑use modifiers is necessary to arrive at fair assessments.
Ron Haugen of North Dakota State University described the productivity formula NDSU computes annually: a county‑level process that produces separate cropland and non‑cropland values using multi‑year moving averages of commodity and cattle prices, a cost‑of‑production index and a capitalization rate provided by AgriBank. Haugen said NDSU follows a statutory process for those calculations and that counties receive the certified values each December.
Representative Anderson moved to amend the bill’s effective date to Dec. 31, 2025; Representative Hawley seconded. The committee then voted to recommend the bill as amended; the committee clerk recorded the motion as passed. Committee supporters asked for clearer and more consistent application of statutory ‘‘shall’’ language so counties apply all statutory considerations (productivity, modifiers, land use) rather than treating them as optional.
Next steps: HB 1508 will proceed to the House floor with a committee recommendation to pass as amended.
