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Schweitzer, GOP leaders strike a bargain
Crucial votes slated this week on funds for K-12 schools,
pay for state workers, bonds for state buildings and more
By Cody Bloomsburg
Community News Service, UM School of Journalism
HELENA — Deadlines make deals come easier. Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the Legislature’s Republican leaders made theirs on the state's major spending plan on Friday with five days left in the regular session.
Senate President Jim Peterson, R-Buffalo, House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, and the governor signed an agreement on Good Friday that stipulates the Legislature will pass the $3.6 billion budget and other spending bills that accompany it. In return, the governor promised not veto parts of it.
The compromise still needs the approval of lawmakers, who must also decide other key questions this week, including how to fund the state’s share of K-12 public schools, whether state workers should get minimal raises, and if the state should sell nearly $100 million in bonds to finance new buildings and repair existing ones.
If all goes according to plan, leaders say Montana’s 62nd Legislature could adjourn by Friday.
The Democratic governor and GOP leaders made concessions to reach a deal. Republicans agreed to allow Schweitzer to accept about $100 million in federal support for social programs such as food stamps and prescription drug assistance for the elderly.
The governor accepted Republican cuts to his budget proposal, including about $20 million less than what he wanted for the state’s university system.
Milburn said Saturday that the budget hashed out late last week is a conservative one that tightens spending and shrinks government.
“All in all, we came out pretty much with what we needed,” he said.
However, the deal did not contain a specific mechanism to fund K-12 schools or give state workers a pay raise over the next two years.
Milburn said an agreement was made to advance a Senate bill that would effectively give public schools less state money next year but slightly more the year after.
The bill hinges on transferring about $11 million a year in oil and gas revenues from a handful of eastern Montana school districts while allowing those districts to keep some of that money to cover costs related to booming energy development.
Milburn also said a bill setting pay levels for state workers will be revived this week in the House, where it failed last week. That version would have given employees a 1 percent increase in 2012 and another 3 percent in 2013.
The bill is a key point of disagreement between Schweitzer and GOP leaders who feel it's unfair to give public employees a raise when so many Montanans in the private sector are out of work or taking pay cuts. Many state workers have had their salaries frozen since 2008.
Milburn said lawmakers may consider a plan to allow for minimal raises, but only if state revenues reach a level that has yet to be determined. He said Republicans have made no deal to approve that bill and that individual members of his caucus are free to vote their consciences.
If the bill doesn't pass it will mean a four-year pay freeze for state workers.
Another big issue left unresolved last week was a $97 million bonding bill for new state buildings and renovation work to others.
Most of the projects involve buildings on college campuses in Missoula, Bozeman, Billings, Havre, and Great Falls. But they also include a new state historical museum in Helena, a nursing home in Butte, state wildlife and veterinary labs in Bozeman, and work at agricultural experiment stations.
The measure has support from business groups and contractors who see it as a jobs bill, but some conservatives argued that now was not the time for the state to take on new debt.
Milburn said the bill was held to see what would happen with the budget. Now, with a more conservative budget all but decided, the bonding measure may stand a better chance of passing, he said.
There is talk, however, of possibly trimming the list of projects, but which ones and whether to trim at all remains undecided. The bill also included a condition that the bonds won’t be sold unless state revenues improve.
Schweitzer wants changes in eminent domain bill
Efforts to sort out whether utility companies and other non-government entities can take private land for publicly approved constructions projects are still in flux as Montana’s 62nd Legislature heads into its final days.
Lawmakers thought they had the problem solved when they passed a bill last week confirming that utilities have that power. But Gov. Brian Schweitzer said the bill is only a band-aid and wants a change to make the law effective only until Oct. 1, 2013.
He said the bill was enough of a fix to allow work to begin on the Montana-Alberta Tie Ltd. power line, along with work at the Rim Rock wind farm in Glacier and Toole counties.
Schweitzer said the bill failed to address landowners’ concerns about just compensation and fair play in eminent domain negotiations.
But the sponsor of House Bill 198, Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Helena, said the measure doesn’t need the sunset clause. He said it merely affirms a historical practice and that other concerns about the eminent domain process should be addressed separately.
The bill seeks to clarify the law in the wake of a district judge’s ruling that MATL, a Canadian company, did not have such legal authority.
The judge ruled in favor of landowners who sued MATL, which aims to run a 214-mile power line from Lethbridge, Alberta, to Great Falls to serve the area’s wind farms.
Lawmakers may vote on Schweitzer’s changes this week.
Vote looms on stricter limits for medical marijuana
The fate of Montana’s medical marijuana law is far from settled, but the Legislature's work on the issue appears to be nearly complete.
A panel of lawmakers from both houses hammered out an agreement last week on legislation to dramatically limit the number of people authorized to use the drug and all but eliminate the booming industry that sprouted to support patients.
Senate Bill 423, the only surviving medical marijuana bill, would ban advertising, storefront dispensaries and take money nearly completely out of the equation.
Those seeking to use the drug to treat chronic pain would need the approval of two doctors, and all patients would need to have a proven and ongoing relationship with the recommending physician. Those controls aim to reduce the roughly 30,000 Montanans who can legally use the drug today to less than 2,000.
Patients would either have to grow their own marijuana or rely on essentially volunteer growers who would be allowed to cultivate a small amount of the drug for up to three patients.
Growers would have to undergo background checks and register with the state. Some fees could be paid by the people they supply, but growers could earn no profits or be compensated for their time.
House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, who supported a complete repeal of the Montana’s 2004 voter-approved medical marijuana law, said he thinks the Legislature will pass the reform measure.
If the measure does pass, the bill could still be changed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer and returned to the Legislature for another vote.
- Reporter Cody Bloomsburg can be reached at 208-816-0809 or by e-mail at crbloomsburg@hotmail.com
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