This article was written by Michael Achterling and originally published by North Dakota Monitor and is reprinted under a Creative Commons license.
The Legislative Management Committee meets Nov. 13, 2024, in the House chamber. (Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
Three full-time staff will join North Dakota Legislative Council ahead of the 2025 session, with more hiring on the horizon if lawmakers approve the council’s plan for an additional 50 positions by 2029.
The three new hires – a communications specialist, an energy policy analyst and a tax policy analyst – aim to better communicate with the public and support lawmakers on key policy areas, said John Bjornson, director of Legislative Council, the nonpartisan research arm of the Legislature.
The new communications specialist, who begins this week, will work to inform the public about the work being done by the Legislature. Tax and energy policy analysts will begin work next month, focusing on areas likely to be addressed in the upcoming session. Earlier this month, Legislative Council had at least 45 bill drafts requested so far that relate to taxes.
More significant staffing additions are needed to address the impact of lawmaker term limits, Bjornson said.
Under the term limits ballot measure approved by voters in 2022, North Dakota lawmakers can’t serve more than eight years in the state House and eight years in the state Senate.
That will start to force turnover in the Legislature in 2028, increasing the burden on Legislative Council to help new lawmakers learn how the Legislature works, Bjornson said.
Up to 69 lawmakers will hit their term limits in 2028, and another 72 will reach the end of their terms in 2030, according to a Legislative Council analysis.
“They are going to need people in place that can help them do their jobs better and that’s our goal,” Bjornson said. “Our purpose isn’t to guide or influence them, but to be able to answer their questions and give that information.”
Legislative Council also will need to provide more in-depth training on budgets as term-limited incumbents begin to leave, said Lori Ziegler, administrative officer for the Legislative Council.
She also said the number of studies and bill drafts being requested by lawmakers during the interim has increased. The requests also have been coming earlier, nearly eliminating any reduced workload for staffers between legislative sessions.
The Legislative Council is proposing an additional 50 staff members to join its team over the next four years. The proposal would double the number of staffers and bring the staff roster up to a more comparable lawmaker-to-staff ratio with other legislatures that have a similar workload, such as Montana which has a full-time legislative staff of about 150.
The proposal for 50 new Legislative Council staff members is estimated to cost $6 million for the 2025-27 biennium and another $6 million during the 2027-29 biennium.
Bjornson also pointed out that some state offices, such as the Tax Department, Attorney General’s Office and Department of Agriculture, each have more staff members than the entire legislative branch of state government, which he hopes the new proposal will change.
Funding for the three new hires will come from existing money in the Legislative Council budget and was approved by the North Dakota Emergency Commission and the Budget Section of the Legislature in September.
