Committee exempts Workforce Safety and Insurance FTEs from state funding pool

During a hearing on House Bill 1021, the House Appropriations - Education and Environment Division voted 4-1 to exempt the North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) agency’s full-time equivalent positions from the state’s vacant FTE funding pool.

WSI Director Art Thompson told the committee WSI is a special-fund agency funded solely by employer premium dollars and cannot commingle funds with the general fund. “We are a special fund agency, funded solely by employer premium dollars. We do not receive any general fund dollars,” Thompson said, summarizing the agency’s budget request and performance data.

The exemption matter mattered to committee members because WSI operates with its own fund and historically returns unspent authority to that fund rather than to the general fund. Thompson said WSI covers more than 27,000 North Dakota businesses and provides workers’ compensation coverage for over 412,000 North Dakotans, and highlighted the agency’s financial track record, including $1.8 billion in employer dividends over the past 20 years and a roughly 10% average…