The past week has been busy with on going budget negotiations, as we work
toward the end of session, one key piece has been signed by Gov. Greg
Gianforte, HB 13, which authorizes the state’s 2024-2025 employee pay plan ,
which appropriates wages, benefits and bonuses for the state workforce over
the next two years.
The pay plan calls for either $1.50-an-hour or 4% raises, whichever is greater,
for state and Montana University System employees this year and next, effective
July 1 of each year. Employees will also receive a one-time bonus, $1,040 for
full-time workers and lesser amounts for part-time workers.
The plan also raises the state’s per-diem meal rates by 10% and holds
employee out-of-pocket health benefit contributions, copay amounts,
deductibles and coinsurance costs constant through 2025.
A fiscal analysis prepared by the governor’s budget office estimates each round
of raises will raise the state’s payroll costs by roughly $50 million a year. The
one-time bonuses will cost an estimated $16.9 million.
The pay plan, which was negotiated between the governor and public
employees’ unions and ratified by the legislature. Its implementation measure,
House Bill 13, passed the House, 89-7, and the Senate, 48-1, winning bipartisan
support in both chambers. The governor signed the bill, which was sponsored
by Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda.
On a related note, we in the Senate voted down a bill, which would have allowed
state employees to use paid sick leave for child related events.
Those that were against the bill, myself included, contend many of these
employees are in public sector unions. where they can negotiate for these types
of benefits, and that personal leave remains available, for such uses.
Switching gears,
Two proposals with competing visions for the tens of millions in taxes that
Montana collects annually on the sale of recreational marijuana are still making
their way through the Legislature as lawmakers work to set a two-year state
budget.
One measure, HJB 669 would send most of the state’s adult-use marijuana tax
collections — which are forecast to top $50 million per year — to the General
Fund, allowing lawmakers to distribute that money as they see fit on a session-
by-session basis, including this one. The other, Senate Bill 442, which i've
personally been involved with and still support, started as a proposal to divvy
the revenue between rural road maintenance and Gov. Gianforte’s signature
substance use disorder treatment program, but has since been amended to also
include statutory allocations for wildlife habitat, state parks and veterans’
programs. Most of SB 442’s statutory allocations would be permanent unless
retooled by a future Legislature.
After passing the Senate 49-1 on April 4, the latter proposal was heard by the
House Taxation Committee Friday.
In his opening remarks, bill sponsor Sen. Mike Lang, R-Malta, described SB 442
as a “once in a generation bill” that would bridge a gap between agriculture,
hunting and access.
I also contend that, in addition to providing stable funding for county roads and
allocating 11% of marijuana tax collections toward treatment for drug abuse, it
would create a new fund, Montana Wildlife Habitat Improvement Program and
Legacy Act, to “increase the pace and scale of habitat stewardship and
restoration treatments across rural Montana.” About one-third of the tax
collections would go toward the general fund, he added.
More than 40 people spoke in favor of the bill, most of whom focused their
support on the county road or wildlife habitat pieces of the bill. Many described
it as a “win-win” measure and thanked Lang for bringing a diverse set of
interests together to craft the proposal seeking to distribute revenues from a
recently established special fund. (Montana voters passed a ballot initiative in
2020 that legalized adult-use marijuana and laid out a framework to divide the
20% state tax levied on recreational marijuana sales between conservation,
veterans, law enforcement and substance use treatment programs.)
HB 442 does covers all these provisions.
While debating the competing measure, HB 669 sponsor, Rep. Bill Mercer, R-
Billings, argued that it’s inappropriate and unconstitutional for lawmakers to
allow appropriation of state revenue by initiative. The Legislature should be
given the opportunity to distribute tax allocations on a session-by-session basis
without digging into Montana code to change where special revenue accounts
are directed, he said. “If we send the signal that you can create, by initiative, a new revenue stream and we allow it ... that’s a terrible precedent,” Mercer said. “We need to get the
money into the General Fund.
I don't entirely disagree with some of Rep. Mercers sentiment's, but what we
have here is a collision of visions, in which I still like SB 442, because it just
makes sense.
Like SB 442, HB 669 has been changed in the legislative process. The version of
the bill that passed through the House with a 62-37 vote included one-time
appropriations for FWP, Department of Natural Resources and Conservation,
and Department of Military Affairs programs. It’s awaiting a hearing in the Senate
Finance and Claims Committee, where we will we will hear and deliberate in the
coming days.
SB 442 awaits further action in House Tax.
Thanks for tuning in, and have a great Montana kind of week.
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