By: Mary Steurer (North Dakota Monitor)
A North Dakota lawmaker says he’ll no longer petition for a ballot measure to make the state fund 100% of the public school system after polling showed homeowners have mixed feelings about his proposal.
Property taxes assessed by local governments cover about 27% of the cost of North Dakota’s public school system for the 2024-2025 school year, according to the Department of Public Instruction. The state paid the other roughly 73%.
Rep. Scott Louser, R-Minot, says the state should cover local governments’ share of public school costs. He believes this is key to broad, long-term property tax relief.
During the 2025 session he sponsored a bill to this end, though it was rejected in favor of another property tax package, House Bill 1176, which provides homeowners with a tax credit of up to $1,600 for tax years 2025 and 2026. The tax credit is expected to eliminate property taxes completely for a subset of homeowners for the next two years.
Louser ultimately voted for House Bill 1176, but announced at the end of the legislative session he planned to revive his proposal through a voter-initiated measure.
He said his policy would be easier to implement, cheaper and provide broader relief to property owners, since it would extend to agricultural and commercial property as opposed to just residential property.
Still, he said he supports House Bill 1176 and will be waiting to see how voters feel about the program.
“I think it deserves an opportunity to be implemented,” he said.
Louser commissioned a survey this spring to gauge voters’ appetite for his ballot measure, though the results were inconclusive, he said.
About 49% of respondents said they would support his policy over the tax relief program established by House Bill 1176.
“I wanted to see at least a 20 point margin for support for a constitutional amendment,” he said. “It wasn’t close.”
The survey, conducted by Florida-based consulting firm Kaplan Strategies, was completed by roughly 1,000 North Dakotans, 99% of whom identified themselves as homeowners. Louser paid for the survey.
Some of the results were contradictory, which Louser said suggests respondents may not have entirely understood the policies they were being asked about.
The poll indicated many North Dakotans may be concerned about the sustainability of the residential property tax credit program implemented by House Bill 1176. About 67% of the respondents indicated they are “concerned” that the program “could result in fluctuating or reduced relief in the future” since it has to be re-authorized each legislative session.
Lawmakers made property tax relief a major priority for the 2025 legislative session after voters put a measure on the November ballot to eliminate property taxes based on assessed value. The ballot measure failed, though lawmakers said voters may be inclined to revive it if the Legislature didn’t deliver on tax relief in the future.
Former state lawmaker Rick Becker, who chaired the effort behind the failed ballot measure, said last week he doesn’t have any concrete plans to pursue another property tax amendment.
“There’s nothing on the table right now,” he said.
