AN ACT to amend and reenact subsection 3 of section 57-51.1-07.8 of the North Dakota Century Code, relating to the county and township infrastructure fund.
HB 1065 amends North Dakota law governing distributions from the county and township infrastructure fund. The bill changes subsection 3 of section 57-51.1-07.8 to direct the state treasurer to distribute the lesser of 13% of the fund balance or $16.1 million to non-oil-producing counties for the benefit of organized and unorganized townships within those counties. The distribution remains tied to township road miles, with each township’s share proportional to its road miles relative to the total township road miles in non-oil-producing counties.
The bill also preserves the existing payment structure: amounts for organized townships are paid by the county treasurer to the township, while amounts for unorganized townships are credited to a special fund for unorganized township roads. It adds/retains a condition that a township is not eligible for an allocation if it does not maintain any township roads. The measure is a technical but important update to the formula and cap governing infrastructure aid for local road systems in non-oil-producing counties.
HB 1065 affects the distribution formula for the county and township infrastructure fund in the North Dakota Century Code, specifically section 57-51.1-07.8. It changes the amount available for distribution by setting the cap at the lesser of 13% of the fund balance or $16.1 million, and it continues to allocate funds based on certified township road miles. The bill directly impacts non-oil-producing counties, organized townships, unorganized townships, county treasurers, and the state treasurer by defining how infrastructure dollars are calculated, transferred, and credited for township road maintenance.
The bill appears to have broad support and little visible opposition. It passed the House overwhelmingly, 90-3, and the Senate unanimously, 47-0, indicating strong bipartisan agreement on the need to maintain or adjust township infrastructure funding. The absence of committee transcript discussion in the provided materials suggests the measure was not especially controversial or was treated as a routine fiscal/administrative update.
No major points of contention are evident in the available record. The only potentially sensitive issue is the allocation formula itself—particularly the cap on total distributions, the focus on non-oil-producing counties, and the requirement that a township maintain township roads to qualify. Those provisions could matter to counties or townships seeking a larger share of the fund, but the recorded votes show no significant organized opposition.