Legislative update

Welcome to week 6 from the 67th session of the Montana House of Representatives. One of the highlights of the week to be sure was Governor Gianforte’s long awaited lifting of the statewide mask mandate. Now it is up to local officials to follow suit and get Montana back to work, back to school and back to normal. Along that line, Senate Bill 67 passed 2nd reading in the House today by a 71-29 margin. This bill eliminates the potential misdemeanor penalty in the law if local law enforcement officials refuse to respond to orders from state or local health officials.

A couple of Governor supported tax relief bills advanced in the legislative process this week. One increased the exemption from the business equipment tax from $100,000 to $200,000 of eligible equipment. There is another bill being offered to eliminate the equipment tax altogether. The $75,000,000 price tag probably dooms it for this session, but it definitely could be an important tool in the future for new business recruitment. Another tax bill likely to pass, establishes a tax credit for employers who provide employee education funding to enhance employee skills.

House Bill 43 passed the house to expand health insurance coverage for telemedicine. This technology makes many healthcare options available in rural areas that wouldn’t otherwise be available, this should be covered by our health insurance. This will better utilize local facilities while reducing travel costs and time. Another common sense, cost saving bill HB231, is in the hearing process. This bill would eliminate the requirement for certificates of need for many start up or expanding healthcare related businesses. This is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that deserves elimination and will help to drive down healthcare costs and improve availability.

HB 224 and HB225 passed the House providing important wolf management tools. 224 allows trappers to use snares, while 225 potentially adds 2 weeks on the front and back ends of the hunting season. These are needed in western regions to help control wolf populations that continue to grow over quotas.

Senate Bill 115 is headed to the House. 115 will return conservation easement decisions to the State Land Board after former Governor Bullock usurped the authority. Once again, the Secretary of State, State Auditor, Superintendent of Schools, Attorney General, and the Governor, will all participate in these important decisions.

Wednesday, I introduced HB 300. This bill would allow local school districts the option of utilizing 8-15 passenger vans to transport students to extracurricular activities. Many of our schools have relatively small numbers to transport over many miles. These types of vehicles can help cut costs while providing safe and comfortable travel.

In Appropriations, after weeks of hearings, it’s time to start making decisions on spending requests. Similar to our own financial decisions, it’s important to try to discern between wants and needs. These departments have budgets in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. This creates an unrealistic challenge really, for any new administration that takes office, and is supposed to present their budget one week later. I think it would make sense to change when the legislature convenes following the election of a new governor. This coming week our subcommittee will be setting appropriation recommendations for the committee as a whole, for the Departments of Livestock, Agriculture, Natural Resources, transportation, Environmental Quality and Fish Wildlife and Parks. As some of these departments have grown over the years, they have become skilled in accumulating large sums of unspent cash. One of our challenges is to find the money, determine what may be needed in reserve or to complete unfinished projects and reduce the amount of new money that needs to come from each of us in the general public.

In recent visits with Superintendent of Schools Elsie Arntzen, schools and possibly libraries that need to upgrade heating and cooling systems, should contact the Office of Public Instruction. An avalanche of federal money has been unleashed as a result of the Virus and is available for these kinds of improvements.

Hopefully, this report helps give you an important glimpse into some of the duties of your State Legislature. As always, please contact me with your ideas or concerns. Thank You, it is an honor to be serving the people of House District 37.