During Tuesday evening's meeting, the Minot City Council approved a resolution opposing the state’s proposed property tax caps and restrictions on city budgets. Council members emphasized the need to maintain local control over fiscal decisions amidst the state’s broader tax reform efforts.
While the meeting was expected to focus on a zoning amendment for a new hospital, the discussion shifted to Minot’s role in state legislative matters. The conversation on property taxes centered around Governor Kelly Armstrong's and District 5 Representative Scott Lauser's tax reform proposals, particularly their plan to impose a percentage cap on how much a municipality can increase revenue in a given year. Mayor Tom Ross discussed his recent meeting with the League of Cities, saying, "The feeling I got from that meeting was there's gonna be a cap..."
This sparked a debate within the council over balancing public calls for tax reform with concerns about state overreach in restricting municipal budgeting authority. There was broad consensus against a state-imposed cap, though some questioned whether it was premature for Minot to take an official stance. Alderman Scott Samuelson later introduced a motion to draft a formal letter opposing the cap, stating, "...I do believe that government locally making decisions is the best. It's not for the state to make those decisions for us, and it's not for our national leaders to make it for us... I believe that later is too late, and I believe now is the time to tell them we need to go in a different direction and they have time to do that."
Following some clarification on how the motion would be addressed, council members reiterated the importance of keeping control with local municipalities and argued that a one-size-fits-all cap would not be effective. Alderman Mike Blessum remarked, "I'd like to think this is a spot where we can choose to be a leader, and maybe a few others would follow us."
The council largely agreed on opposing the cap, concluding that now was the best time to push back before legislative changes were finalized. The resolution passed 6-1, with Alderwoman Lisa Olson casting the lone dissenting vote. "I personally am opposed to caps. However, I don't think that it's right tonight that we drop this political bomb without hearing anything else from anyone else in our community... If we want to have it on our next agenda and give people the opportunity to weigh in, I can support it at that time, but I can't tonight," Olson said.
The resolution now formally positions Minot against a key component of the state’s tax reform proposals—property tax caps. It now remains to be seen whether other cities will follow Minot’s lead in opposing these restrictions on local control.
View tonight's meeting in full here
