Governor Armstrong has called the North Dakota Legislature in for a special session starting January 21st to address the funding awarded to North Dakota to support the first year of a statewide Rural Health Transformation Program. North Dakota has been awarded $199 million in federal funds to strengthen rural health care by improving access, quality and health outcomes for North Dakotan’s over the next five years. As a kick off to the special session, Armstrong will deliver a State of the State address. The address will begin at 10 a.m. CT and will be livestreamed on the Governor’s Office website at www.governor.nd.gov.

The special session will primarily focus on acting on the Rural Health Transformation Program funds, although lawmakers may propose addressing other urgent issues they deem have an immediate need to be addressed prior to the 2027 Legislative Session. The special session is expected to run from Wednesday to Friday.

INTERIM SESSION PROGRESS

North Dakota lawmakers continue to work even in non-legislative years. During the interim they tackle studies assigned through legislative action. NDACo monitors numerous interim committees and has been tapped several times this year to testify on various topics.

INTERIM TAX REFORM AND RELIEF ADVISORY COMMITTEE

NDACo has testified twice before the interim tax committee which is tasked primarily with studying property tax reform and relief. While this seems broad, the committee so far has dialed in on the implementation of the primary residence credit (PRC) including bringing mobile homes on the same application timeline and the PRC success rate. The Tax Department reports that 145,264 North Dakotan’s applied for the $1600 PRC in 2025 and about one third of the applicants or 50,000 homeowners will owe zero taxes after the credit. The homestead and disabled veteran credits were also expanded during the last session so the total number of North Dakotan’s paying zero property taxes will be even greater.  

The committee has requested information from NDACo on tools counties use to inform citizens of property tax and budget information. NDACo highlighted the transparency portals used by two counties along with the information shared on county websites along with the property tax portal that serves as one location linking property tax information for all but seven counties.

Several legislators on the interim committee indicated a desire to dive into revamping the property tax statement. NDACo has encouraged using a subcommittee to develop a proposal with input from county auditors and programmers. For example, lawmakers have pushed to have color pie charts on the tax statement for the past several sessions, but this change would come at an increased cost to counties to print thousands of tax statements in color. “It’s important to balance the desire of what lawmakers would like to see on the tax statement with what is attainable to put on the tax statement without increasing programming and printing costs.” said NDACo Government Affairs Specialist Donnell Preskey.  “Instead of making changes every session to the property tax statement, it’s important to be thoughtful and deliberate to make sure changes meet the needs of citizens and the desire to provide information in the most transparent way.”

COMMITTEE ASSIGNED JAIL RELATED STUDIES

During the last legislative session, lawmakers were made abundantly aware of the ripple effects of how the overcrowding situation at the state prison system was impacting local jails. The Interim Government Finance Committee is assigned to study the impacts of deferred admission and prioritization of inmates sentenced to NDDOCR. County facilities are holding 346 state sentenced inmates due to lack of bed space at the state level. Of the 19 county and regional jail facilities, all but three contract with the state and twelve of them contract with federal agencies. The Burleigh-Morton County Jail will also have a 120-bed pod available to lease to NDDOCR beginning in 2026. According to a recent jail study, the average inmate population at the local level has been on a steady increase over the past few years, climbing from 1312 in 2022 to 1735 in November 2025. Two facilities, Grand Forks County and Cass County jails, have recently opened expansions. Three other facilities, Lake Region, Walsh County and Richland County have indicated they need new facilities due to the condition and age of existing facilities.

The Interim Judiciary Committee is also studying truth-in-sentencing and at their most recent meeting heard from the Attorney General’s Office along with Cass County Sheriff Jesse Jahner, Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney Dennis Ingold and Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler. Those individuals described how current sentencing practices are not transparent, that in most cases, inmates are serving a small fraction of their sentences, even on violent offenses. Bills to require truth-in-sentencing, requiring mandatory minimums for violent offenders, have failed in the past two legislative sessions.