North Dakota House passes bill to create Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship

The office will license and maintain a registry of professional guardians and conservators, set regulations and policies, oversee legal and disciplinary actions, and manage state funding.

By Grant Coursey

BISMARCK — The North Dakota House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted Monday, April 21, to create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship.

Senate Bill 2029 passed the House with a 92-1 vote. It previously passed the Senate with a much narrower 24-23 vote.

Amendments in the House would make the proposed office an independent entity, while the version passed by the Senate would have had the office under the judiciary branch budget.

Making the office an independent entity addresses concerns raised in the Senate that housing the Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship under the Judicial branch could create a conflict of interest. Guardians and conservators are appointed to cases by the courts, and their primary function is to work with the courts.

Existing guardianship and conservatorship programs will stay under the agencies that currently manage them until they can eventually be moved under the new office. The deadline for those programs to be moved under is April 1, 2026, according to testimony from Rep. Karla Rose Hanson, D-Fargo, in the House Appropriations Committee.

Otherwise, the purpose of the office remains largely the same as laid out in the Senate version of the bill. The office will license and maintain a registry of professional guardians and conservators, set regulations and policies, oversee legal and disciplinary actions, and manage state funding for guardianship and conservatorship programs.

Supporters of the bill say reform for guardianships and conservatorships has been a long time coming, and the bill will provide much-needed oversight and accountability for guardianships and conservatorships. They say it will hopefully work to solve the shortage of guardians and conservators in the state.

Opponents of the bill have said it will hamper existing guardians and conservators with unnecessary hoops to jump through and that adequate oversight already exists.

The bill will now return to the Senate for a vote of concurrence before it can be sent to the governor.

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North Dakota House passes bill to create Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship

North Dakota Senate votes to create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship

Senate Bill 2029 still needs to pass the House and receive the governor’s signature before becoming law.

Sen. Paul Thomas, R-Velva, speaks on Senate Bill 2029, related to guardianship and conservatorship, at the North Dakota state Capitol on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Tom Stromme / The Bismarck Tribune

By Grant Coursey

BISMARCK — The North Dakota Senate on Friday narrowly passed a bill to create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship.

Senate Bill 2029 still needs to pass the House and receive the governor’s signature before becoming law.

The bill would create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship with broad powers to oversee such matters statewide. The office would license and maintain a registry of professional guardians and conservators, set regulations and policies, oversee legal and disciplinary actions, and manage state funding for guardianship and conservatorship programs. The North Dakota Supreme Court would create a committee to supervise the office.

After amendments in both the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Appropriations Committee, the bill appropriates just over $15 million to pay for the OGC for the 2025-27 biennium.

The bill was brought forward as the result of an interim committee on the subject and would overhaul the way guardianships and conservatorships are overseen, something supporters say the Judiciary has been working toward for more than a decade.

Supporters of the bill say it would address the “lack of accountability and cohesiveness of guardianship programs and funding” in the state and address the state’s shortage of guardians and conservators.

Opponents of the bill are concerned that having the Judiciary oversee the OGC, when guardians and conservators are appointed to cases by the courts and their primary function is to work with the courts, would create a conflict of interest. They say the office would be better placed under the department of Health and Human Services and say the OGC is “overkill” because there are already mechanisms in place to hold guardians and conservators accountable

The bill received recommendations to pass from both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee and passed the floor with a vote of 24-23.

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North Dakota Senate votes to create an Office of Guardianship and Conservatorship