Legislature remains deadlocked over budget bills

By MOLLY PRIDDY
Community News Service
UM School of Journalism

HELENA – Simmering frustration and parliamentary jousting marked yet another day in which Montana lawmakers failed to find a compromise over a budget to guide the state through the next two years.

As the 90-day session draws to a close, the House today voted to dissolve a special committee attempting to patch together a bill that specifies funding for children’s health insurance and education, key points of contention between Democrats and Republicans.

House Bill 676 is the partner bill to the state budget bill, House Bill 2. It provides implementation language needed for appropriating state funds. This bill also contains the amendments from the GOP-controlled Senate cutting House proposals to fully fund the voter-approved Healthy Montana Kids Plan and to finance K-12 schools.

“All the bad things that the Senate did to us are in there,” said House Speaker Bob Bergren, D-Havre.

Bergren said his decision to dissolve the conference committee on HB 676 does not kill the bill itself, because another committee could be appointed. But it was meant as a warning to Senate Republicans, he said.

“Let’s negotiate and go home,” Bergren said. “They’ve wasted four days on me.”

But Senate Republicans said the House’s actions did nothing to quicken the pace of budget negotiations, which have been at a stalemate for days.

“I think that does pose some very serious problems with being able to go on ahead and complete the process,” said Sen. Keith Bales, R-Otter and chairman of the Senate's budget committee.

“I think that progress was being made, but I think that the sheer fact that the House has, in essence, taken away one of the tools that we need to solve this problem is unfortunate at this time.”

Funding for children’s health care and K-12 schools have been the major points of contention this session. Republicans say the state does not have enough money to fully implement a voter-approved expansion of a program providing health coverage to some 30,000 uninsured Montana children. Nor does it have enough state money to fund schools at the level Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Democrats want, they say.

Democrats disagree, saying Republicans are ignoring the will of the voters on children's health care and will also lead K-12 schools over a fiscal cliff if it lowers state funding.

At a Thursday morning budget meeting, House Appropriations Chairman Jon Sesso, D-Butte, did not elaborate on the House’s actions, but instead pushed for full funding in both schools and children’s health insurance. He said there is money available, even if it means not meeting the governor’s goal of keeping $250 million in reserve at the end of session.

“There’s no fix in it unless we come to agreement on these two major issues,” Sesso said.

However, Senate Majority Leader Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, said he was “disappointed” in the House’s decision on HB 676, and added that it would not help lawmakers finish their task of creating a state budget by the 90th legislative day.

There will be significant funding changes if HB 676 does not pass. A 2 percent cut across all state agencies put in place by Senate Republicans earlier in the session would be removed. So would the decreases to the base funding for K-12 school districts.

When the GOP lawmakers decided to lower state K-12 funding and backfill the difference with federal stimulus money, they put language into HB 676 to make this move permanent. This would mean the reduction in state funding would be permanent when federal dollars disappear in two years. Without HB 676, the reduction would only apply to this biennium.

HB 676 also allows the state to use money from a special revenue fund to pay for the Healthy Montana Kids Plan. Bergren said this language could be put in the stimulus bill.

The bill also allows Montanans covered by Children’s Health Insurance Plan to use CHIP money for contraception.

As of Thursday afternoon, conference committees took no further action on the nearly $8 billion budget bill or companion legislation to spend nearly $800 million in federal stimulus dollars.

The 2007 Legislature was the first in Montana’s history to finish a 90-day session without fulfilling its principal constitutional duty to create a state budget.

House rejects GOP cuts, endorses budget bill

By MOLLY PRIDDY
Community News Service
UM School of Journalism

HELENA – After only a day’s debate, Montana’s House of Representatives passed a budget today, rejecting every Republican effort to whittle it down.

The House voted 65-34 to give its initial approval to House Bill 2, which would fund state government over the next biennium. The budget totals $8.1 billion in spending, a $474 million increase from the current budget.

Democrats praised the day’s work as a model of bipartisanship, while disappointed Republican leaders predicted the GOP-controlled Senate would have a better chance of making cuts.

House Speaker Bob Bergren, D-Havre, called the budgeting debate, which began on the floor at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 5:45 p.m., an unprecedented success.

“All 100 people in this chamber want what’s best for Montana,” Bergren said. “We just have a little bit different philosophies.”

A handful of Republicans joined all 50 House Democrats in beating back every proposed cut, despite forecasts late last week of another $41 million drop in projected revenues. In all, analyists have predicted revenue shortages of $290 million since just before this session begain.

The biggest sections of the budget - human services, corrections and public education - all received increases. Human services, accounting for $3.2 billion of the budget, saw a 9.4 percent increase from the last biennium. Public education, at $1.6 billion of the budget, will increase by over 3 percent. The prison system would see a 3 percent increase of $11 million.

The only budget area that saw an reduction was higher education, which will decrease by $5 million.

House Minority Leader Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, offered 21 of the 22 unsuccessful amendments to cut what he considered to be a too-fat budget. He also warned that the state can expect plenty of revenue drops in the future.

“Our nation and our state face serious times ahead,” Sales said. “You cannot spend your way into prosperity.”

Sales’ amendments included removing salary increases for attorneys in the Department of Justice, cutting $175,000 from the Montana Board of Crime Control, and cutting $250,000 from the Office of Public Instruction.

He also proposed cutting $1,300 over the next two years from the Board of Public Education budget for the per diem payments for board members.

“This would just prevent them from having a ham sandwich while they’re on the road,” Sales said. “They can pack a lunch.”

When that amendment failed 36-63, Sales expressed his disappointment. “We couldn’t find the resolve as a group of individuals to remove $1,300,” he said.

But House Appropriations Chairman Jon Sesso, D-Butte, said his committee put together a sound budget that prepares the state for lean times ahead.

“Montana is in the black, we’re not in the red,” Sesso said. “We’re not mortgaging our future to anyone.”

House Democrats held steady in opposing any cuts, while a handful of Republicans joined them for a variety of reasons.

Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, said he didn’t support floor amendments out of respect for the Appropriations Committee, and because it can be dangerous to change a large budget bill without first researching repercussions.

Rep. Duane Ankney, R-Colstrip, said he voted to pass HB 2 and send it to the Senate, where Republicans have the votes to make cuts.

“This bill will go to the Senate where all your concerns will be addressed,” Ankney told fellow Republicans. “This is not the place to do that.”

But Rep. Tom McGillvray, R-Billings, compared state spending to that of General Motors, the auto maker now seeking a government bailout.

“You can’t continue to spend money you don’t have forever,” McGillvray said. “We’re running ourselves into a hole.”

The most heavily debated section of the budget concerned the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, with issues ranging from children’s health care to state-funded contraception.

McGillvray tried but failed to cut funding for the Healthy Montana Kids Plan, the program approved by voters last fall to provide heath insurance to nearly 30,000 uninsured children from low- and moderate-income families.

The coverage would be paid for through the CHIP and Medicaid programs, in which the federal government matches state funding.

“Certainly, most voters out there that I talked to had no idea what was really happening there,” McGillvray said. “This is not poverty at all. We’ve gone way beyond poverty and those who ran that initiative knew it wasn’t about kids in poverty, it was about socializing medicine.”

The amendment failed 33-65.

Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Helena, said the federal government uses matching dollars in these programs to suck states into the same debt it faces.

“Many of the things that come into the health services I’d class as charity,” Peterson said. “Pure charity.”

But Rep. Sue Dickenson, D-Great Falls, said health-care spending reflected humanity in hard times.

“We’re not talking about charity,” she said. “We’re talking about justice, we’re talking about investments.”

The next step for HB 2 is the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, where it will be considered and amended before going to the Senate floor for debate.