Burgum’s Budget Guidelines Fail to Address North Dakota’s Priorities

 

(BISMARCK, ND) — Yesterday, Governor Doug Burgum presented his guidelines for the 2019-2021 budget process that fail to address the needs of working families and pressing priorities of North Dakota.

“These guidelines are woefully inadequate to solve the problems facing North Dakota’s fiscal health,” said Senate Democratic-NPL Leader Joan Heckaman (D-23).”The state is looking at an $800 million shortfall that Governor Burgum seems to believe can be addressed by empty and vague platitudes about the power of innovation. North Dakotans need real leadership that supports working families and secures a better future for our children.”
“Governor Burgum’s budget plan calls for unrealistic and wrongheaded across the board cuts to our most important state functions and the salaries of public sector employees,” said House Dem-NPL Leader Corey Mock (D-18). “Reductions in state agencies and higher education will put North Dakota on the road to a serious fiscal catastrophe that states like Kansas and Oklahoma have not recovered from.”

Unsurprisingly, the Governor did not address rising property taxes his administration oversaw last year through the elimination of the property tax credit.