Update from the state capitol

Legislative Update from the Capitol:

Nick Schwaderer is the Montana House Representative for House District 14; which covers all of Mineral County plus the communities of Frenchtown, Ninemile, Evaro and Huson in Missoula County and Dixon, Perma, Camus Prairie and Paradise in Sanders County.

Well, this week we will cross the threshold of the 45-day mark of our 90 day session. Afterwards (unless a special session is called) we will not meet again until 2015.

The halfway point is also an important time in the legislative process, as the House and Senate reach their deadlines to transmit “General Bills” to the other House. General bills are those that do not affect state revenues. As you can imagine, as everyone scrambles last-minute to get their bills heard and through committees, we have been pulling longer hours than usual during our 6-day legislative week. I have yet to have seen those rumored sessions that last until midnight, but an 8am-7pm day is not unusual at this point.

In theory, we should be wrapped up with committees and running all the bills through floor hearings Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

This last week was relatively eventful; for the first time of the session my main committee (House Taxation) was filled with all media outlets and cameras to cover our bills; usually they are off covering social issues in House Judiciary in the morning while we tinker with number crunching.

This past week we heard (but have yet to vote on) two rival property tax bills; one proposed by Rep. Reichner (R ), HB 230 and one proposed by the House Minority Leader Rep. Hunter (D) by request of the Governor, HB 361. They would have an equal effect on the budget throughout the biennium of about a $100,000,000 cut on property taxpayers, and both have the sustainable backfill mechanisms to ensure that local governments don’t lose revenue. The key difference is that the Governor’s bill would be a $400 check to all residential property owners, regardless of wealth/status/income and Rep. Reichner’s bill would actually be a permanent tax cut. He argued that the $400 check was a “gimmick” to fulfil a campaign promise and that Montana property owners are over-taxed; that more sustainable solutions are needed.

We also heard the Governor’s business equipment tax bill and Rep. Bennett’s business equipment tax bill (HB 472). The governor’s would change the threshold for tax from its current levels to $100,000; whereas Rep. Bennett’s would change the threshold to an exemption and raise it to $250,000. The reason to change from a threshold is that if a farmer buys a used piece of equipment valued at $1 above a threshold he pays taxes on the entire equipment whereas a farmer $1 under would pay none; this change would result in the exemption applying on the first chunk of value.

We also passed a couple of bills to increase hunter and sportsmen access to locked up public lands. HB 444 brought by Rep. Jacobson had broad bipartisan support and would create a tax credit for private landowners who worked to voluntarily provide access to public lands currently inaccessible because of private lands barriers. HB 404 by Rep. Flynn would also encourage FWP to purchase access easements to give our hunters more access to the State’s game.