A BILL for an Act to create and enact a new section to chapter 57-01 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to a property tax information portal; to provide a report; and to provide an appropriation.
Summary
SB 2166 would require the North Dakota Tax Commissioner to create a public property tax information portal on the commissioner’s website. The portal would be designed to educate citizens about property taxes and would include interactive parcel-level data on property tax collections by taxing district, historical collection information, contact information for elected officials of the taxing districts associated with each parcel, and educational tools such as terminology explanations and tax-change estimators.
The bill also directs county auditors to submit property tax data and related contact information at least annually, or more often if required by the commissioner, in the form and manner the commissioner prescribes. It further requires protection of personally identifiable information and mandates a report to legislative management at least once per biennium on implementation progress, costs, and usage statistics. The bill includes a one-time general fund appropriation of $5 million for the 2025-2027 biennium to develop the portal.
Impact
If enacted, SB 2166 would add a new section to North Dakota Century Code chapter 57-01 and expand the Tax Commissioner’s duties to include building and maintaining a statewide property tax transparency and education platform. It would also impose new reporting and data-submission responsibilities on county auditors and create a significant one-time state expenditure for portal development. The bill would affect taxpayers, county governments, taxing districts, and state tax administration by making parcel-level property tax information more accessible to the public.
Sentiment
The bill appears to have been framed as a transparency and taxpayer-education measure, but it did not receive enough support to advance. On Senate second reading, it failed by a vote of 13 yeas to 32 nays on January 30, 2025. The vote suggests limited legislative support for the proposal in its introduced form, despite its public-information purpose.
Contention
The main points of contention likely centered on the size of the appropriation, the scope of the portal, and the administrative burden on counties and the Tax Commissioner. Supporters would likely view the bill as improving transparency, accountability, and taxpayer understanding of property taxes, while opponents may have questioned whether a $5 million one-time investment was justified, whether the state should build and maintain such a system, and whether the required data collection and privacy protections would be burdensome or duplicative.