GRAND FORKS – Grand Forks city and county leaders are hoping the state will consider reprioritizing funding for an grant program that in the past has paid for things like bridge replacements and other infrastructure projects.
Operation Prairie Dog is among a series of so-called buckets that are filled by taxes on oil production in North Dakota. The buckets are ordered, however, and Operation Prairie Dog is one of the last beneficiaries.
Ahead of the upcoming 2025 North Dakota legislative session, both the city and the county have moved their funding buckets in this program ahead on the funding order list. Prairie Dog funding, in the eyes of Grand Forks, has become less reliable and riskier to count on for infrastructure projects since the program was created in 2019.
“We’re incredibly grateful. These funds have done so much good for the city of Grand Forks,” City Administrator Todd Feland said. “However, over time, since (the Legislature) created this program and provided funding, we’ve gone back in line and other buckets have been put in front of us.”
The program takes revenue from gross production taxes on oil and gas and spreads it among various funding buckets ranging from the state general fund, to various infrastructure funds and the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System. There are 12 funding buckets that, if filled completely, would be a total of over $1 billion worth of funding per biennium.
“Straight up, (the program is) awesome,” Grand Forks County Engineer Nick West said. “It’s such a great
mechanism to transfer money from the state to the counties.”
The goal of the program, namely the municipal and county infrastructure funds, is to spread the wealth from oil- and gas-producing areas throughout the state. However, the funding buckets fill sequentially and gross production tax revenue doesn’t always fill up all the buckets.
It also takes time for the buckets to fill. For instance, while the current biennium began on July 1, 2023, Grand Forks will only be getting its first disbursement of infrastructure funds likely in January as it took the last year and a half for the eight buckets ahead to fill.
“This time it looks like (the buckets) will fill, but the first time around it did not,” city Finance Director Maureen Storstad said. “The most recent biennium (2021-2023), both our buckets did fill, and the way they have it set up this biennium it’ll probably spill over because it’ll be more than enough to fill all those buckets.”
In the last biennium, the city received more than $12.8 million in funding and the county received $5.3 million in funding for infrastructure. Typically, the disbursement is made in two installments, as there are two buckets of funding.
In the current biennium, the first bucket is worth $64.75 million and gives an initial disbursement based on population. The second bucket is $165.25 million, which has a more variable distribution based on factors like total population, population growth and a jurisdiction’s taxable value growth.
When the Prairie Dog funding was first implemented, the municipal and county infrastructure funding buckets were farther up the priority list. However, since 2021, it has been behind the $400 million Strategic Investments and Improvement funds and in 2023 was placed further back when the $65 million NDPERS bucket was added in front of both funding buckets. In addition, all the buckets have increased in amount, which only adds to the wait.
“It becomes more and more risky if we’re going to be able to depend upon those funds that are really vital and that we’re relying upon at this point,” Feland said.
When the city creates its six-year capital improvement plan, Feland said that there’s a “pretty big asterisk” when it comes to Prairie Dog funding. While the city is grateful for the program receiving these funds has become more of a waiting game.
In the county, West said that while he understands why the Legislature does it this way — especially given that there’s no requirement to disburse funds if there are no funds to disburse — these funds really help the county with infrastructure projects.
“We took our $5.3 million and we replaced eight rural bridges with big aluminum box culverts. We paid our local share of the paving of Eagle Avenue on the Traill County line east of Reynolds,” West said. “Now that’s
eight bad bridges off our system that were replaced with good, big culverts.”
For counties, cities and townships, the funds through this program can be used for a variety of infrastructure projects of their choosing. Unlike other funding programs, local governments are given a lot of leeway in how the funds can be used, provided they give the state a report every even-numbered year.
“That’s what’s wonderful about the program — it’s spent on projects where people can see it being spent,” West said.
Feland added that “whatever we can do to provide more certainty and be able to rely on the funds sooner would be helpful.”
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