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Use of fund will be legislators’ legacy

Members of the North Dakota Legislature are having a healthy debate over whether to use Legacy Fund earnings – available for use this year for the first time – and, if so, how.

Ideas have ranged from spending some of the earnings from the approximately $6 billion dollar fund to buy down a percentage of residents’ property taxes, to funding research at UND and NDSU, to establishing a revolving infrastructure loan fund for political subdivisions.

Gov. Doug Burgum has proposed spending $300 million of the fund earnings on “legacy projects” such as a Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, unmanned aircraft infrastructure and more.

Meanwhile, Rep. Corey Mock, D-Grand Forks, would like to see re-investment of the earnings in the fund, and asserts that House Concurrent Resolution 3055 – which calls for just that – has “strong bipartisan support.” The Senate has yet to vote on HCR 3055 and even should it prevail, it would have to be approved by voters in the 2020 election because it amends the state’s constitution.

North Dakota voters decided in 2010 to set aside 30 percent of state oil and gas tax revenues for the Legacy Fund. The trust fund was inaccessible until this year and every two years, when the Legislature can spend earnings from the fund with a majority vote. While there are severe limitations on any eventual use of the actual fund, the language about use of earnings from the fund was purposefully left vague so legislatures in the future could make those decisions.

So what will it be? Will Legacy Fund earnings be spent or not? If so, how? Or will the money not be touched or reinvested? Will these decisions be driven by political will or public benefit?

Only one thing is certain – that this decision will be the legacy of the Legislature. The ensuing results of the decision will be how legislators are judged by the public. It’s that important an issue.

What will it be?

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