Sales tax bill would give some funds to counties

Talk about it

A bill to bring more North Dakota sales tax money back to the local counties may be in the works, according to Sen. John Grabinger, D-Jamestown. The bill would require using the funds for infrastructure.

Grabinger is working to gain support for a bill to return 1.5 percent of the 5 percent sales tax collected by the state to the county where it was collected.

“I’ve put it together,” Grabinger said. “Now I’m trying to get bipartisan support and I’m struggling.”

Along with limiting the use of the funds to infrastructure projects the bill would require the county to match the funds.

“Counties would have to make a 20 percent match,” Grabinger said. “We want to make sure the counties have some skin in the game to make this work.”

Stutsman County would be eligible for an estimated $3.3 million per year under the proposed legislation.

“With the match it would give Stutsman County about $4 million to work with on roads,” he said. “That is a substantial amount of money but we can’t keep throwing $10 bills at $10,000 problems.”

Casey Bradley, Stutsman County auditor and chief operating officer, agreed.

“This would be huge for Stutsman County,” he said. “We could go a long way in getting projects done with that kind of funding.”

Bradley said the county may have difficulty matching the 20 percent all years, depending on how the bill was worded and if the sources of funding for the match were limited.

Grabinger said the concept of the bill should help it get passed.

“It doesn’t create a new tax,” he said. “If the state can’t afford it in the future it can go back to the state keeping all the funds and there is no tax increase.”

Grabinger said the biggest concern he has heard from the members of the Legislature is that the concept has never been tried in the past.

“I hear from the others this is too bold an effort,” he said. “It is going to take a bold action to solve these problems. I went to Bismarck to take bold actions and to get the job done.”

Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at 701-952-8452 or by email at knorman@jamestownsun.com

Tags: north dakota legislature, news