HB 1384: The Mark Splonskowski Protection Act
A bill designed to prevent the Burleigh County Commission from using its "nuclear option" will also cause a loss of oversight powers in all counties in the future.
(Note: This is a bill analysis that I was procrastinating about writing since it was introduced the first week of the session. But due to the public statements published in the Bismarck Tribune this afternoon, it can no longer be avoided.)
Over the last couple years and more recently again in the last few months, I have written extensively about the situation with Burleigh County’s finances and continuing squabble between the Burleigh County Commission and the Burleigh County Auditor.
This is and has been a sticky issue for the Burleigh County Commission has been wrestling with as it has sought to figure out what has been going and what has also not been getting done in the county’s name.
As I wrote back in early December, part of the solution is probably to de-couple the Treasurer and Auditor jobs back to the way it used to be prior to the 1980s/90s when the jobs were combined:
The county commission should explore the following steps:
Separate the Role of Treasurer from the Auditor’s Rol…
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