AASHTO Journal, 5 February 2016
Gov. Jack Dalrymple ordered government agencies to reduce their planned spending to help close a $1 billion state budget shortfall, the AP reported, as revenues shrink amid falling oil prices and a decline in oil drilling in the nation’s second-largest producing state.
The AP said Dalrymple ordered agencies to cut their budgets by 4.05 percent, to save the state about $245 million through North Dakota’s two-year spending cycle.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation told AASHTO Journal the reduction means that the NDDOT will need to curb its state general fund spending on road construction projects, and allocations to counties and transit providers, by $26.6 million.
“We are currently evaluating our budget to see what needs to be prioritized to stay within revised revenue projections,” the official said. “The North Dakota DOT is committed to providing essential services as we review our budget, and continue to work on our mission to provide a safe transportation system.”
The AP said the state the Legislature had approved a record-high $14.4 billion budget for the two years that began July 1.
Besides ordering the spending cuts, Dalrymple will also draw down more than $497 million from the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund, which the AP said is a cash surplus that was built up over the past decade “largely from past oil bounty.”
In February 2015, the governor signed into law a measure that provided $1.1 billion in “surge” infrastructure funding, which mostly went to the NDDOT for state highway improvements and to administer grants for county road and bridge projects.
NDDOT Director Grant Levi (left) with Dalrymple.
That law directed most of the fast-tracked spending into the infrastructure-stressed Bakken oil region in the western part of the state.