Since I graduated from the University of North Dakota in 2002, tuition at our state's flagship university has increased by nearly 78%. This makes the opportunities of higher education a lot more expensive to come by for today's students. For some, it puts attending college out of reach.

In a state that is struggling to retain its young people, burdening our students with excessive debt doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why I'll introduce legislation that will freeze tuition at its current level for the next two years while using excess funds from our state's sizeable budget surplus to ensure that our universities have the resources needed to effectively perform their important duties.

Neighboring states like Montana have instituted a tuition cap in recent legislative sessions, and North Dakota should follow suit in order to keep pace. A tuition freeze will help North Dakota keep more of its best and brightest at home and give us time to develop an even more creative way for students to finance their education in our state.

I don't need to tell you that we rely heavily on property taxes as a way to fund services in our communities, particularly education. This reliance on property taxes makes for unpredictable tax increases on working families, can price individuals on fixed incomes out of their homes, and creates a barrier to home ownership for many young people.

To fix this situation, state government in North Dakota should play a bigger role  in funding K-12 education to allow local governments to reduce their dependence on property taxes as a revenue source.

While the property tax rebates authorized last legislative session provided much-needed relief for property owners in the short term, our focus should now be on addressing the underlying cause of the dramatic property tax increases we have seen over the last several years. That starts with the state stepping up its role in funding elementary and secondary education in North Dakota.

“Corruption.” “Mismanagement.” “Mess.” “Dark saga.” “Embarassment.” Oversight that is a “joke.”

These are just a few of the choice words that one North Dakota newspaper has used to describe the situation at North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance. Felony indictments, alleged misuse of public funds, and potential retaliation against whistleblowing employees at the agency have left a black mark on a state that prides itself on clean government.

On top of that, there is evidence that injured working people have been wrongly and deliberately denied benefits that they are entitled to by law and count on to support their families while they can't work.  In North Dakota, that's not the way we treat people who need help.

We've got to fix things at WSI. I support the initiated measure which would place control of this agency back underneath the governor's office. Within that structure, the North Dakota Insurance Department should also be given the ability to use its experience in regulating private insurance companies to make certain injured workers are receiving the protection that WSI is required to provide them.

From kindergarten through graduate school, I've been lucky to be a product of North Dakota's public education system. I owe a lot to the teachers, professors, and coaches who have gone out of their way to create opportunities for me over the years.

As good as we are at educating our kids in North Dakota, the salaries we pay our educators don't exactly make the grade. Our state ranks nearly last in average salaries for public school teachers. We can do much better than that, and the Legislature should use the coming session as an opportunity to boost our national ranking in teacher pay.

And when young North Dakotans graduate from high school, they should have access to a high-quality college education at an affordable price right here in our state. The Legislature should further invest in higher education to reflect our universities' increased roles as research institutions and engines of job creation. This will help us continue to build the national reputation of the Red River Valley Research Corridor as a dynamic area of opportunity while maintaining access to education for North Dakota's best and brightest. 

With all that they have done for us, it is extremely disappointing to know that many Guard and Reserve members experience a loss of income when serving their country on active duty -- sometimes in excess of thousands of dollars a year.

We need to get a handle on how this pay gap problem is affecting North Dakota Guard and Reserve members and then take steps to make things better. Tax credits to employers who make up the difference between soldiers' military and civilian pay and state assistance for the self-employed are just a few things we should consider in order to help soldiers' families while their loved ones are serving us overseas.