Preparations are underway for an August special Legislative session.
Lawmakers are scheduled to return to Bismarck Aug. 2nd for what Legislative leaders hope is a 3 day session.
Representatives of the state’s Office of Management and Budget will be meeting with state agencies – to look at potential spending reductions from their current budgets. Those reductions will be in one big bill lawmakers will consider in the special session. It comes on top of the 4 percent allotment ordered by Governor Dalrymple in May. And it also comes as the agencies prepare their budget requests for the next two year period.
"Agencies are going to have a little bit of a double whammy," said OMB director Pam Sharp. "They're going to have to reconfigure their current budget, while they will be looking at the next budget as well."
State agencies had a July 15th deadline to submit their 2017-2019 budget requests to OMB. Several agencies had already asked for extensions.
Meanwhile, when Governor Dalrymple announced he would be calling a special Legislative session to deal with a $310 million budget shortfall, he also said another small allotment was possible.
Under state law, a Governor has to order an allotment, or across the board spending cut, in order to access the foundation aid stabilization fund. That fund helps hold K-12 education whole.
"Right now, I would say that's likely," Dalrymple said at the Wednesday news conference announcing the special session.
House Majority Leader Al Carlson (R-Fargo) says the foundation aid stabilization fund is there to be used, to guard against local property tax increases.
"They're high enough already, without us not fulfilling our commitment to education," Carlson said. "We've made a $2 billion commitment to foundation aid -- biggest we've ever made -- in exchange for getting reduced property taxes. We need to access that. It has to be part of the picture."
Earlier this year, when Dalrymple ordered a 4 percent across-the-board reduction, it allowed him to access the fund – and, in effect, restore that money to education aid.