Jamestown mayor criticizes Legislature over property tax reform

Yahoo

09-05-2025

May 8—JAMESTOWN — Mayor Dwaine Heinrich criticized the North Dakota Legislature for creating "chaos at the local level" over property tax reform while also touting the progress that has been made in Jamestown.
Heinrich said the Legislature's passage of House Bill 1176 is "very positive action" and means millions of extra dollars for Jamestown residents. He said HB 1176 grants a $1,600 property tax buydown on every taxable primary residence in the state but also caps the amount local political subdivisions can raise levies at 3% yearly.
"From a local political subdivision standpoint, the disappointing part of the property tax buydown discussion was the unnecessary false narrative surrounding the property tax issue and the blatant political pandering made part of the process," he said. "If political pandering were an Olympic event, some North Dakota legislators would be sporting shiny new gold medals, unless of course they were disqualified for the use of steroids or other performance enhancing drugs."
Heinrich delivered the State of the City address on Thursday, May 8, at North Dakota Farmers Union.
He criticized the passage of HB 1176 in its current form, expressed frustration with a housing development bill that failed and touted economic development in the Jamestown area in the past 47 years.
Heinrich said the 3% cap on raising levies annually is not workable for the city of Jamestown. He said local political subdivisions will need to find other ways to raise money.
Heinrich said the city of Jamestown receives about $5 million in property taxes for its general fund that is used by police, fire and municipal court. He said sometimes health insurance costs increase annually by 10%.
"We have no control over the costs of police cars, fire equipment and other supplies that we must purchase," he said. "On these budgets, costs over which we have no control likely will exceed the 3% cap. This without any pay raises for employees or cost-of-living raises. A 3% cap for many political subdivisions across the state is simply going to create chaos for many of our cities who do not have access to large per-capita tax bases or other funds."
Using approximate numbers, Heinrich said the city of Jamestown's per-capita value of taxable real property — which is fourth lowest in the state — is about $39,000 compared to the city of Wahpeton and $33,000 and the city of Bismarck at $66,000. He said Bismarck has the highest per capita value of taxable real property in the state while Wahpeton has the lowest.
"It would follow that in Wahpeton the taxes or mill levies would have to be twice as high as in Bismarck to raise the same number of dollars per capita," he said. "Given that there is often an economy in scale, that puts even a greater burden on communities with lower population and lower property valuation per capita."
Heinrich also said a recent article on property taxes shows North Dakota ranks 34th out of 50 states for property tax burden. When looking at the total tax burden per capita in the nation, North Dakota ranks 43rd, he said.
Heinrich said the city of Jamestown received another setback in its attempt to develop residential lots with the Legislature killing Senate Bill 2225.
"We are now back at the drawing board and we will continue until we are successful," he said.
Senate Bill 2225 would have established the Housing for Opportunity, Mobility and Empowerment (HOME) grant program in the North Dakota Department of Commerce. The program would have provided grant dollars for one-third of the infrastructure costs for residential development projects. The local political subdivision and the developer of the residential lots would each provide one-third of the costs for residential development projects.
Heinrich said the Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corp., the city of Jamestown and Stutsman County were proactive and approved potential funding to use the program.
The JSDC Board of Directors had approved in March a forgivable loan of $1 million to the city of Jamestown that will be used as matching dollars for a grant program that helps create residential housing development. The funding was contingent on approval of Senate Bill 2225 in the state Legislature.
Heinrich said one challenge for Jamestown is overcoming news by social media and negative comments about the city. He said some negative comments include Jamestown remaining the same for years and no new development going on.
In his 47 years of living in Jamestown, he said the University of Jamestown has gone through a "remarkable" transformation, a new high school has been built, and the Jamestown Civic Center has become the host to state girls basketball tournaments.
Heinrich said the I-94 Business Park in Jamestown and the Spiritwood Energy Park Association's industrial park at Spiritwood are also the result of positive forward-thinking individuals in the community.
"All of these things did not happen by accident," he said. "They happened because of you."
Moving forward, Heinrich said a large portion of aged infrastructure is getting replaced, including aged water lines and water mains.
"Constantly failing water lines creates a huge expense to you, the city taxpayers, as it is very expensive to dig up and repair failed waterlines particularly during the winter months," he said.
He said the city is fortunate to have expert grant writers who have helped Jamestown receive millions of collars for projects. He said the $9 million water main replacement project will be completed without using any locally generated tax dollars.
Heinrich also said the Legislature revised the "Operation Prairie Dog" program. He said there isn't enough information on the changes to the program to fully understand the impacts to the city.
"What I do understand is the Prairie Dog bucket was moved up in the oil funding stream to almost certainly guaranteed funds, but it looks to me that the guarantee will be about $3.5 million instead of the $5 million per biennium we have received the last couple of sessions," he said.
Heinrich added that additional funding was added to the North Dakota Department of Transportation's budget that will go directly to cities and more grant funding might be available.