Keeping in touch

The House Appropriations Committee, after reviewing all the appropriations subcommittees’ recommendations, created a legislative budget that is currently $60 million lower in total funds than the executive request.  This is the House of Representatives effort to provide a structural balanced budget for the State of Montana.  Structural balance is the difference between ongoing revenues and ongoing spending.  Currently, without considering the impact of the actuarially funding of the retirement systems, the structural balance is short by $71.7 million in FY 2012 and $20.8 million in FY 2013, leaving a bit more work to be done by the Legislature as House Bill (HB) 2 continues on through the process.

The House Appropriations Committee presented HB 2 to the legislative body as a whole last Friday.  The House worked on the bill all day Friday as well as Saturday, and completed its work on Monday, March 14, with the intent that HB 2 would be passed over to the Senate so they could begin their review.  For the Senate, it is now time for them to amend the bill to reflect their constituents’ concerns.

Working to reach a structural balance during this time of economic downturn has not been an easy task for the members of the appropriations committees.  Nor were the final decisions the House had to make about HB2.  We had to make some very difficult decisions as cuts had to be made and those cuts will ultimately affect everyone in some way.  HB 2 reflects those cuts to expenditures, employees, services and programs as found in HB 2’s five (5) sections.

Those five sections are: Section “A” General Government; Section “B” Health and Human Services; Section “C” Natural Resources and Transportation; Section