Armstrong opposes Measure 4 but says property tax reform should be priority

Rep. Kelly Armstrong talks to supporters in Bismarck June 11, 2024, after being declared the winner of the Republican nomination for governor. He's pictured with his wife, Kjersti Armstrong, left, and running mate Michelle Strinden. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)

This is the third in a three-part series about candidates for governor.

Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Kelly Armstrong said lawmakers should be prepared to stay in Bismarck for longer than 80 days and make difficult decisions if voters pass Measure 4 this November.

In an interview with the North Dakota Monitor, Armstrong said he opposes the property tax measure and says it would lead to the state making cuts to programs and state employee salaries to free up cash for local governments.

Armstrong is taking on Democratic-NPL Party candidate state Sen. Merrill Piepkorn and independent candidate Michael Coachman in the November election to replace North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who announced in January he would not seek a third term .

Armstrong has represented North Dakota in the U.S. House since 2019 and served in the state Senate from 2012 to 2018. He is a former chair of the North Dakota Republican Party.

Armstrong said if Measure 4 fails, relief and reform are necessary to help struggling homeowners with their property tax bills.

“If we go through another set of offering relief, the state is gonna essentially be buying down 50% of the local share of property tax,” Armstrong said. “We’ve been good with the carrot, but now we have to start talking about local budgets.”

He said caps on valuations could be an effective guard rail, but would be difficult to impose uniformly across the state because some fast-growing school districts and communities, such as West Fargo and Horace, may need more local funding.

One suggestion, Armstrong said, is for the  state to consider buying down residential property taxes but leaving taxes for commercial and other zones in place.

“But again, that doesn’t solve it,” he said. “It’s the worst kind of government. You spend a ton of taxpayer money to buy down property taxes, really trying to do the right thing, and you aren’t really delivering any real relief.”

Armstrong added he is not committed to any one solution, but a comprehensive approach that could also include revisiting the one-time $500 primary residence tax credit that lawmakers approved in 2023.

If Measure 4 is approved by voters this fall, Armstrong said he would recommend state lawmakers “pull every non-essential” bill and prepare for a longer than normal legislative session.

“A lot of things go on the chopping block,” he said.

Armstrong said he is opposed to tapping into the principal investments of the state’s long-term funds, especially the Legacy Fund, which is designed to replace state oil revenues.

Armstrong says experience is a strength in bid to be North Dakota’s next governor

He also said the state needs to have a balanced budget per state law, but he doesn’t believe uniformly cutting department budgets is a solution.

“If you cut everything a little bit, you don’t do a whole lot with the bureaucratic inertia that can exist in any government,” Armstrong said.

Full state prisons

Another problem, he said, is some departments really can’t have their budgets cut, such as the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In June, the department reported it was nearly 100 male inmates over the state’s prison bed capacity .

Armstrong, an attorney who led the state Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would advocate for more sentences with supervised probation for misdemeanor convictions, especially for young, first-time offenders.

Instead of building additional prison facilities, Armstrong said he prefers upgrading and expanding existing prisons and focusing on decreasing inmate reentries. He also said coordinating transition services across state agencies to offer more paths for rehabilitation.

“The vast majority of the violent criminals and the people that are incarcerated, that wasn’t their first trip to the prom,” he said.

Armstrong said support and transition services are important to reduce recidivism, but those programs can be difficult to navigate.

“I used to help my clients do this stuff and I’d get frustrated and this is Kelly Armstrong with a law degree, let alone someone who’s been sitting in the pokey for five years,” he said.

School choice

Armstrong said both of his kids have attended public schools in Dickinson and Bismarck and wholeheartedly supports the state’s public education system. He added he believes public school criticism has been nationalized and those talking points don’t necessarily correlate with public schools in North Dakota.

Armstrong said he chose his running mate, Rep. Michelle Strinden, R-Fargo, because of her experience as an educator to fill in his lack of experience on the issue.

He stressed any additional K-12 student assistance program would have to come from new revenue streams.

“It can’t just be subsidizing tuition for people who are already going there,” Armstrong said.

Learning to govern

Armstrong said his experience as a youth baseball coach unexpectedly gave him some important lessons in his political career.

“Being the American Legion baseball coach in Dickinson was the best thing I had for being in Congress,” he said. “Because if you can deal with youth sports parents, you can deal with Congress.”

Armstrong said he once went to talk to his struggling starter on the mound and told him, “Nobody cares how hard you throw ball four.” In other words, worry less about image and more about positive results.

“Getting things done is more important than social media clicks, being branded the firebrand conservative and all of that,” he said.

Armstrong has three remaining debates with the other gubernatorial candidates before Election Day.

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