Bismarck-backed bill would let cities replace special assessments with monthly infrastructure fee; city estimates $30–$35/month

Representative Jason Doctor told the House Finance and Taxation Committee that House Bill 1389 would give cities an option to replace street-improvement special assessments with a voter-approved utility-style infrastructure fee that would appear on monthly bills. Doctor said the idea dates to a 2017 local task force and that Bismarck and other cities have studied the concept.

City of Bismarck officials said the fee would be tied to a capital-improvement plan and could be adjusted annually, like other utility rates. Jason Tomanek, Bismarck city administrator, said the fee would be used to create a citywide street-maintenance fund to pay maintenance—chip seals, overlays, partial reconstruction—and could be used to secure bonds that would be repaid from the fee stream, or spent on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Tomanek told the committee the city’s early modeling put a residential fee in the neighborhood of $30 to $35 per month—an estimate supporters described in testimony as roughly equivalent to spreading a typical special-assessment obligation over a multi-year, budgetable amount. “The idea with this concept would be that street maintenance would be its own utility,” Tomanek said.

Supporters including the North Dakota League of Cities and the North Dakota Watchdog Network said the bill would give local governments another tool to reduce one-time special assessments that can burden homeowners and older residents. Corey Peterson of the League said the proposal would enable cities to plan and budget street maintenance rather than impose periodic lump-sum assessments.

Opponents and skeptical committee members pressed for specific consumer protections. Representative Porter and others asked whether property owners would retain protest rights and whether the fee mechanism would reduce transparency or citizen protections that exist under current special-assessment law. Tomanek said the city would pledge to continue public processes—notifications, public hearings and commission action—but acknowledged the current bill does not yet include statutory protest-language and that some safeguards may need to be added.

City stakeholders said the fee structure could exempt certain properties (federal property, cemeteries), mirror special-assessment treatment for tax-exempt noncommercial institutions, and allow commercial and residential classes to be billed differently. Committee members also asked whether new growth would be prioritized; witnesses said greenfield infrastructure financing and new construction special assessments are distinct from the proposed maintenance fee, and the bill targets maintenance rather than initial construction.

The committee heard multiple supporters and closed the hearing with no formal vote recorded. Proponents asked the committee to focus on the bill’s narrow change—allowing political subdivisions (including schools and park districts) to pay their share into such a fee—rather than broader hypotheticals.

Details: Supporters said Bismarck stakeholder work began in 2016 and the city would take any fee to a voter referendum before implementation. The League and Bismarck officials said implementation details—including protestability and indexing—could be addressed in amendments or a subsequent study.