City Grill

Russ Hanson
Executive Director
AGC of North Dakota

“The construction industry has softened considerably from the 2012-17 timeframe, where historical investments were made into infrastructure funding. This is the trend in both the Fargo area as well as the rest of the state,” Hanson says. “When using the term ‘softened,’ it is a reference to the current ND DOT funding for highway construction (2018) being reduced by 50% compared to the investments made from 2012-17.”

Hanson says the North Dakota economy is dependent upon two key commodities—oil and agriculture.  “As the peaks and valleys of these entities occur, it affects our state economy accordingly. Agriculture the past couple of seasons has been in a down market, which seems to have stabilized. Record oil prices early in the decade, then a couple years of greatly reduced oil prices, have affected the North Dakota economy, as our state tax revenues the past couple of years have declined significantly. However, oil-tax revenue collections are ahead of forecasted amounts. We hope this will lead to increased transportation funding, as oil-tax revenue was the source of funding earlier this decade,” he says.