NDACo News
NDACo Summary of Prairie Dog Infrastructure Funds
Posted 3/20/20 (Fri)
The timing of when these funds will be available has been a big question. The current forecast is tracking ahead of schedule, but not by much. It is anticipated funds will be available for counties in spring/summer of 2021. Of course, oil production and price factor into if the “buckets” fill up faster or slower than planned.Here is a quick summary of the Prairie Dog funding:
- $250 million allocated to infrastructure funds
- $20 million for airports
- $115 million to cities
- $115 million to non-oil producing Counties and Townships
- $100,050,000 will go to the non-oil producing counties (based on UGPTI needs study)
- $14,950,000 will be divided equally to townships in non-oil producing counties
- $9,300 to each township
- Those funds will be distributed to the county for allocation to organized townships
- Current forecasts show distribution of funding to counties will happen the second quarter of 2021
- Funding intended to be a continuing appropriation
- Eligible Projects for counties: Prairie Dog funds are to specifically be used for road and bridge infrastructure (paved or unpaved, new, repair, maintenance or replacement)
- Counties able to “carry over” prairie dog funds from year to year to use for a large project
- Counties to report by 11/30/22 to State Treasurer by on use of Prairie Dog funds
- There will be a method to indicate if carrying over funds
- Townships do not have a reporting requirement
- The nine large oil producing counties will not receive funds through the County & Township Infrastructure Fund; however, they will continue to receive a direct monthly allocation through the gross production tax formula
- Large cities could possibly receive funds by the end of 2020
- Graph on State Treasurer’s website tracks progress of buckets filling
The State Treasurer has added this chart to their website and will update it monthly. It shows the progress of the buckets filling up since the law went into effect August 1, 2019. Circled are the two columns that represent the one bucket pertaining to county funding.