Lawmakers hammer out spending 'compromise'

HELENA – Democrats and Republicans reached an initial agreement on a state budget late Monday as the House Appropriations Committee voted to chop nearly $60 million from agency requests yet still fund a voter-approved initiative to provide health coverage for almost 30,000 uninsured children.

“The state and all of our citizens are struggling, the economy is faltering and we all have to chip in in order to make ends meet,” said Chairman Jon Sesso, D-Butte (pictured).

Sesso said the committee met over the weekend to cobble together the details of House Bill 2, the session's big budget bill. He also said each state department will get less money than it asked for.

One of the biggest bipartisan developments was the agreement to put the $35 million, voter-approved Healthy Montana Kids Plan back into the budget. The plan, which expands health care eligibility for CHIP and Medicaid, has been a matter of partisan contention this session.

Last month, Republicans voted to block funding the CHIP expansion, saying it was too expensive and unfair to Montana taxpayers. Democrats disagreed, saying lawmakers should listen to the 70 percent of Montanans voted for the expansion in November.

Sesso said the $60 million in reductions had to be made to meet the constitution's requirment of a balanced, but lawmakers predicted that some of those reductions, including $20 million for education, will be covered by the federal stimulus package.

Though no money was removed from the Health and Human Services Department, lawmakers redefined $30 million as one-time-only funding. That means HHS will have to make budget reductions in the 2012-2013 biennium or hope for a better economy, Sesso said.

“The concept there is asking the experienced and capable workforce in Human Services to make those changes in the ’12 –’13 biennium,” Sesso said.

The Department of Transportation will go without a request for $6.4 million from the general fund, and general government was reduced by about $8 million.

Rep. Ray Hawk, R-Florence, was one of two committee members who voted agianst the budget bill. He said the budget was still unbalanced and he couldn’t vote to approve it. Rep. Dave Kasten, R-Brockway, also voted against the bill.

But a bipartisan group of 18 committee members OK'd the budget deal, saying it represented the best example of bipartisan cooperation so far this session. Even so, bill still has major hurdles to clear.

It goes next to the House floor, where all representatives will get the chance to debate it and recommend changes before it passes over the Senate.

-by CNS correspondent Molly Priddy