The North Dakota Legislature played a pretty good game of catch-up during its 2009 session, but it didn't break much new ground.
Perhaps the most important achievement was a funding formula for the state's public schools that finally delivers on a 50-year old promise. The state will provide roughly 70 percent of the cost of instruction.
The 70 percent level has been a goal since the 1950s, and it was explicitly promised as long ago as 1981.
So, it's about time.
The education funding breakthrough also addresses another long-standing problem in the state, the excessive and unequal burden of property taxes. Local property tax rates should go down about 70 mills as a result of the school funding plan. The state will replace the money so school districts don't have to raise it through property taxes.
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This helps reduce the inequality inherent in the old way of funding schools, which relied on local property taxes. Then, rich districts raised more money and were able to provide better schools.
As impressive as this achievement is, it's good to remember that it wasn't the Legislature that initiated. Lawmakers approved a plan put forward by Gov. John Hoeven, who's been a leader in both tax and school reform efforts. Hoeven was responding to a lawsuit brought by poor districts in the state.
Acknowledging that doesn't diminish the pride the state should take in finally addressing these issues or the relief that citizens should feel when they see their diminished property tax bills in February.
Higher education fared as well in the session. Funding was increased significantly, and legislators avoided the micromanagement that once hamstrung the system.
These outcomes are cause for celebration. North Dakota's university system will be stronger and able to contribute even more to the state's economy and quality of life.
But the increases don't quite catch up to national norms. Although faculty and staff will get more money and more dollars will be directed toward research, North Dakota will continue to lag behind most other states.
Legislators also funded some amenities, notably the Heritage Center on the state Capitol grounds in Bismarck. A total of $52 million will be available for the center, $40 million of it from state money.
The state's namesake, the International Peace Garden, also got money, in this case for long-needed improvements on the ground and for an interpretive center that will significantly improve visitors' experience in the garden, which is at the midpoint of the border between the U.S. and Canada. That's about 40 miles north of Rugby., N.D.
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Other building projects were funded, too. UND will be able to remodel the building housing its Center for Teaching and Learning -- the so-called Education Building. But lawmakers didn't make money available for a building to house the hardware and staff for the statewide computer center that's now spread across the campus.
A number of other projects were funded around the state -- a prison in Bismarck and a new grandstand at the state fairgrounds in Minot among them. All had one thing in common. They were overdue. Existing facilities needed updating and repair.
Legislators were catching up with North Dakota's infrastructure needs.
This reflects a level of caution that's hard to criticize in times of recession.
Still, the state's budget surplus is among the biggest in the nation in real dollars and in per capita share. Indeed, North Dakota is one of only a few states with a budget surplus.
Nothing the Legislature did will change that -- or even bite into the surplus very much. As state Sen. Ray Holmberg observed in a speech to the local Rotary Club last week, lawmakers didn't accept the estimates that their professional consultants made for growth in the state's economy. Instead, they came up with their own, lower estimates.
The bottom line, then, is that lawmakers did well at playing catch-up. On balance, however, they displayed an excess of caution. Catch-up isn't quite enough for one of the nation's richest states. The Legislature missed a chance to put North Dakota in the lead.
