Tax Bill Could Hurt Some Schools - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Tax Bill Could Hurt Some Schools

The North Dakota legislature is in the midst of its crossover break - a few days off at the midpoint of the session.

But one of the bills passed in the House on the final day of the first half is causing concern at several school district headquarters.

House Bill 1319 reduces property tax rates around the state while making some changes in how state money is distributed to local districts.

And officials at Native American school districts - such as Belcourt and Dunseith - are worried that the new plan will cost them millions of dollars.

House Bill 1319 passed easily - only three dissenting votes were recorded.

But two of the three came from District 9 - home to both Dunseith and Belcourt schools.

Democrat Tracy Boe says he became aware of the problem only a day before the bill was voted on.

He says he's gotten some assurances that the funding problems created by the bill will be fixed when the bill goes to the Senate.

(Rep. Tracy Boe, -D- District 9) "We talked to leadership, we talked to the bill's sponsor, and showed where there was going to be a flaw in it for certain districts - I think there are eight or ten school districts that are going to be involved in this. They indicated they were going to look at it and try to do something, it didn't seem like it was going to be a big problem to fix it."

Boe says there would need to be up to six million dollars in funding added to the bill to make the impacted districts equal to counterparts around the state.

Belcourt Superintendent Lana DeCoteau says there's a meeting scheduled among officials of the impacted schools and Governor Jack Dalrymple on March 7th to address the problems with the House bill.