5 days Ago By Melissa Van Der Stad
FARGO — Property tax reform and prison overcrowding: members of the Cass County Commission discussed this and more during their meeting Monday, Dec. 16. “Each legislative session has its own feel and character,” commission chairman Tony Grindberg said.
“And in my opinion this legislative session will be one of excitement and one of challenge.” With a new administration in the governor’s office and a host of new legislators at the state Capitol, these new leaders will be charged with harnessing North Dakota’s “abundant” resources to solve the top challenges facing the state, he said. In recent months, the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation enacted an inmate prioritization policy to address persistent overcrowding.
This means that local jails, also overcrowded, can send fewer inmates along into the state prison system. For Cass County and the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, this issue will be “center stage” going into the next legislative session, Grindberg said. “County jails must not be viewed or utilized as a ‘pressure relief valve’ for the ND Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations (DOCR) capacity issues,” Cass County Administrator Robert Wilson wrote in commission documents.
“To maintain proper function and capacity, it is critical that jails — and county taxpayers — not be responsible for inmates remanded to DOCR custody.” Grindberg, Sheriff Jesse Jahner and the county’s new commissioner, Tim Flakoll — also a former state senator — have already been on the phone with the state’s new governor, Kelly Armstrong, to share how vital prison and jail solutions are to Cass County. The court system is also a legislative priority going into 2025, Grindberg said, which will include exploring a state and county partnership to fund a shared courtroom space going forward.
It’s each county’s role to provide “adequate” space in county courthouses for state officials and judicial action by the state, Wilson wrote in commission documents. “If something more than a minimally ‘adequate’ space is desired, counties and the State should develop policies and a funding mechanism for the shared responsibility of providing for current needs in growing counties with increasing judicial demands and caseloads,” Wilson wrote. One major topic of discussion that will also feature heavily into the upcoming legislative session is property tax reform, Grindberg said.
Cass County should have a seat at the table during these discussions, Grindberg said, to help keep local government in the mix at the state level. “As the largest, most populous county in North Dakota, Cass County should be involved at the concept-development stage of any proposal to reform property tax assessment, collection, distribution or limitations that impact local government,” Wilson wrote in commission documents. While Cass County commissioners declined to provide the Red River Valley Fair with $1.
2 million in “emergency” funding this summer following a dismal fiscal year, the county is urging the fair’s director, Cody Cashman, to work with state representatives to try and find a way to financially support the fair going forward. These priorities were identified with the help of county employees, Wilson said Monday, who will continue to monitor legislation as it emerges through the North Dakota Association of Counties website at https://ndcounties.blog/ .
“A piece of legislation can move by the minute when you really get into session, and this blog keeps us up to date,” Wilson said. The identified priorities, already being discussed by commissioners, county staff and state leaders, as well as the continued work of county employees to monitor incoming bills that affect their departments, puts Cass County in a “good position” to navigate the upcoming legislative session, Wilson said..
