HELENA — A day after the Montana House officially sent the main state budget bill to the Senate, it’s already moving quickly through the process.
The House passed HB 2 58-41 on a final vote Monday afternoon. By the end of the day, it was officially introduced in the Senate. The Senate Finance and Claims Committee held a hearing on the bill the next morning.
(Watch video for a look at what will be next for House Bill 2.)
“We are going to move through it fairly rapidly,” committee chair Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, said. “We've all been working on it for a couple months now.”
The hearing lasted around two hours. Glimm said at the end that the committee would debate the bill on Friday.
HB 2 lays out more than $16 billion in state spending over the next two years, including about $5 billion from the state general fund.
Senate President Sen. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, who has said he wants to see the budget trimmed, told reporters Tuesday that he expects conservative Republicans will propose amendments – but likely on the Senate floor, rather than in the committee.
“Throughout the session, we haven't had the votes to be fiscally restraining in Finance and Claims,” he said. “The House did a lot of amendments that failed that were good ideas, that I think we should try over here in the Senate and see if there's an appetite to kind of right-side the budget.”
Legislative Democrats backed several successful attempts to amend the budget on the House side, including adding funding for Medicaid reimbursement and other human services programs, and a floor amendment adding staff to Fish, Wildlife and Parks for hunter education. However, they told reporters Tuesday that they would still be considering possible changes on the Senate side.
“I think the goal is to preserve all the work that the House did,” said Sen. Laura Smith, D-Helena. “You put incredible effort and achieved some really exceptional results in HB 2. Our goal is to preserve that, and then ensure that we've got Democrat priorities – that if there's some that got left on the cutting room floor over in the House side, to make sure that we're advocating to get those back in.”
The Legislature’s biggest job during their 90-day session – and the only one required by law – is to pass the state budget. Leaders said, once HB 2 is finished, lawmakers will likely be thinking about wrapping up the session.
But that bill alone won’t answer all the questions – especially on how to deliver tax relief. Many property tax and income tax bills are still moving through the process, and they’ll need to be coordinated to come up with a final budget picture.
“The next three weeks, we got to figure out how to bring all that together,” said Senate Majority Leader Sen. Tom McGIllvray, R-Billings. “It's tough.”
Regier said HB 2 will likely get its full debate on the Senate floor sometime next week. If the Senate adds amendments – in committee or on the floor – the bill will need to get back to the House by the 80th legislative day, April 23, to keep moving forward.
