SCHMID: LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST - JANUARY 12, 2016
“THIS IS NOT A COLLAPSE, it's a dip in the road. Producers will survive; they know how to hunker down." -- Brave words from Ron Ness, president of the ND Petroleum Council, speaking to the F-M Chamber of Commerce. He was followed by Ryan Rauschenberger, ND Tax Commissioner, who said the state was not threatened by a drop in oil tax revenues because only 8 percent of those revenues go to the state’s general fund.
EXCELLENCE COMES WITH A PRICE “Sanford’s role in making Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo a world-class regional health care center cannot be minimized. The additions to the cities’ medical and health care sector are unprecedented in North Dakota history.” -- Fargo Forum editorial. Something else is unprecedented in the region -- a Forum news article the same day discussed the compensation of Sanford physicians and officers. Four physicians have base salaries over $2 million and a Sr. Vice-President retired with a deferred compensation payment over $4 million. A second article said Sanford was paying nurses a signing bonus of $20,000 because of a scarcity of nurses in the region.
SHELL GAME "The aspect of tying it to charitable donations, if you will, it's a scam. It's a shell game. Every one of these donations is really a payment by the taxpayers of North Dakota." -- State Rep. Rick Becker of Bismarck describing the state’s Housing Incentive Fund. Taxpayers who contribute to the fund receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on their state income taxes. Donations to the fund are often accompanied by corporate bravado without any mention that the donor gets every cent back. The fund is used to subsidize new apartment and rental units with subsidies awarded in a quarterly competition. Becker proposes cutting the fund from the state budget.
YES, IT DIDN’T WORK School systems in ND are short 200 teachers. The state proposed to temporarily use “community experts,” people who lack formal teaching credentials, but have real life expertise. An example would be a pharmacist teaching chemistry. There was a dearth of interested parties and plenty of state red tape -- result, zero, no successful applicants.
ROB PORT is a blogger who writes about ND politics. He has steadily developed his style and visibility. Now, there is a payoff -- he has been retained by Forum Communications for weekly political commentary in their newspapers, radio and TV.
COACH DALE BROWN Curtis Eriksmoen writes about historic ND figures for the Fargo Forum. He calls Dale Brown “one of the greatest college basketball coaches in the nation.” Brown was raised in Minot, graduated from Minot State and held a variety of high school coaching jobs in ND and California. He achieved fame as a basketball coach at Louisiana State University from 1972 to 1997. Eriksmoen will have another installment on Brown next week.
MILLS FLEET FARM is a 35-store chain of general merchandise stores, mostly in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They have a store in Fargo. The stores are hard to miss since they generally have tall, orange-capped silos. KKR, a national investment firm, is buying Mills Flleet Farm for over $1 billion and has the deep pockets to expand the number of Mills stores and upgrade warehousing and distribution.
UNSUSTAINABLE A StarTribune commentary by Tom Horner states that the state income tax burden of upper income Minnesotans is 40 percent above the national average. The state gets about half of its operating revenue from individual income taxes. That is an unsustainable reliance on “the most unstable and unpredictable” source of revenue. “The income tax produces a lot of revenue in good economic times . . . and falls precipitously during slowdowns.” An analysis by the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence reports the “income tax system is tapped out.” The commentary concludes the system should be made less dependent on income taxes and more balanced with consumption taxes -- that proposal is currently a political nonstarter.
WINONA LADUKE (a former Green Party candidate for vice-president) plans to enter the “power struggle” at the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota near the ND border. Her platform has the usual bromides about improving the economy and the environment, but also includes two controversial features. LaDuke would forgive many lower level offenses by tribal members and restore their drivers licenses. She also proposes a constitutional reform to eliminate “blood quantum” as a means of determining tribal membership. Blood quantum stipulates the percentage of tribal blood needed for membership.“
TIGHTENING THEIR BELT There may not be a collapse, but there is a noticeable drop in state sales tax revenues, which were 25 percent lower in the July-September quarter than a year earlier. Much of the drop was centered in the oil sector. The state budget director said it is very likely that state agencies will see across-the-board budget cuts after new forecasts come out.
NO HOME BOYS This morning UND released the names of 38 applicants for its presidency. Commentary about the list will become available next week. The applicants tend to have second level positions, such as department dean, provost and vice-president, at institutions in over 20 states and foreign countries. Interestingly, there are no applicants from ND. Two applicants withdrew because of ND open record laws.
EXCELLENCE COMES WITH A PRICE “Sanford’s role in making Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo a world-class regional health care center cannot be minimized. The additions to the cities’ medical and health care sector are unprecedented in North Dakota history.” -- Fargo Forum editorial. Something else is unprecedented in the region -- a Forum news article the same day discussed the compensation of Sanford physicians and officers. Four physicians have base salaries over $2 million and a Sr. Vice-President retired with a deferred compensation payment over $4 million. A second article said Sanford was paying nurses a signing bonus of $20,000 because of a scarcity of nurses in the region.
SHELL GAME "The aspect of tying it to charitable donations, if you will, it's a scam. It's a shell game. Every one of these donations is really a payment by the taxpayers of North Dakota." -- State Rep. Rick Becker of Bismarck describing the state’s Housing Incentive Fund. Taxpayers who contribute to the fund receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on their state income taxes. Donations to the fund are often accompanied by corporate bravado without any mention that the donor gets every cent back. The fund is used to subsidize new apartment and rental units with subsidies awarded in a quarterly competition. Becker proposes cutting the fund from the state budget.
YES, IT DIDN’T WORK School systems in ND are short 200 teachers. The state proposed to temporarily use “community experts,” people who lack formal teaching credentials, but have real life expertise. An example would be a pharmacist teaching chemistry. There was a dearth of interested parties and plenty of state red tape -- result, zero, no successful applicants.
ROB PORT is a blogger who writes about ND politics. He has steadily developed his style and visibility. Now, there is a payoff -- he has been retained by Forum Communications for weekly political commentary in their newspapers, radio and TV.
COACH DALE BROWN Curtis Eriksmoen writes about historic ND figures for the Fargo Forum. He calls Dale Brown “one of the greatest college basketball coaches in the nation.” Brown was raised in Minot, graduated from Minot State and held a variety of high school coaching jobs in ND and California. He achieved fame as a basketball coach at Louisiana State University from 1972 to 1997. Eriksmoen will have another installment on Brown next week.
MILLS FLEET FARM is a 35-store chain of general merchandise stores, mostly in Minnesota and Wisconsin. They have a store in Fargo. The stores are hard to miss since they generally have tall, orange-capped silos. KKR, a national investment firm, is buying Mills Flleet Farm for over $1 billion and has the deep pockets to expand the number of Mills stores and upgrade warehousing and distribution.
UNSUSTAINABLE A StarTribune commentary by Tom Horner states that the state income tax burden of upper income Minnesotans is 40 percent above the national average. The state gets about half of its operating revenue from individual income taxes. That is an unsustainable reliance on “the most unstable and unpredictable” source of revenue. “The income tax produces a lot of revenue in good economic times . . . and falls precipitously during slowdowns.” An analysis by the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence reports the “income tax system is tapped out.” The commentary concludes the system should be made less dependent on income taxes and more balanced with consumption taxes -- that proposal is currently a political nonstarter.
WINONA LADUKE (a former Green Party candidate for vice-president) plans to enter the “power struggle” at the White Earth Indian Reservation in Minnesota near the ND border. Her platform has the usual bromides about improving the economy and the environment, but also includes two controversial features. LaDuke would forgive many lower level offenses by tribal members and restore their drivers licenses. She also proposes a constitutional reform to eliminate “blood quantum” as a means of determining tribal membership. Blood quantum stipulates the percentage of tribal blood needed for membership.“
DAKTOIDS: A Bismarck Tribune editorial says the real estate market has found a “return to normal” with rental vacancies up and slower selling times for houses . . . A Forum report by Amy Dalrymple indicates oil drilling and fracking is down, but natural gas gathering and processing is up. Gas capture is nearing 90 percent.
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