The Montana Taxpayers Association held a legislative policy and tax workshop on Wednesday September 12 at the Great Northern Hotel in Helena. The workshop was a precursor to the rapidly approaching 2013 legislative session. The Mission of the Association is to be Montana’s most trusted resource for nonpartisan tax and government spending information. MonTax will work with both the public and private sectors to develop fair, equitable and predictable tax policies and to insure that government provides value to the public, states their website.
Included in the day’s presentations were an update from Terry Johnson, Legislative Fiscal Division, on the current fiscal health of the state. While revenues are currently up, they are not from increased wages or production and the department is concerned with their continued flow.
Jon Bennion, Montana Chamber of Commerce, and Joe Lamson, Redistricting Commissioner, gave an update on the new redistricting maps for state elections. The House District map has been agreed upon by the committee and is available online for public review and comment. Next, the committee will be paring up the House Districts to establish the Senate Districts.
Republican Gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill gave a presentation on several initiatives that his administration would pursue if elected. One in particular that would dramatically benefit Eastern Montana would be his Infrastructure Funding Program. Hill proposes to freeze the current Coal Trust Fund at the current $835 million level, and redirect the annual contributions to an account of which 66% would be used for water, sewer and roads by impacted counties. This would raise roughly $22 million a year for such projects. He proposes to redirect those funds for a ten year period.
Rep. Matt Rosendale gave a presentation on Oil’s Role in Montana’s Future, and further described the impacts eastern counties and cities are facing. “Although the production of these resources generate billions of dollars in tax revenue and wages from jobs, it does place additional stress on the budgets of the cities and counties as they try to accommodate the rapid growth, prior to receiving any financial benefit”. Rosendale is working with several area legislators to create legislation which will address these needs and was pleased with Hill’s announcement. “Rick has made several trips to our area and has witnessed first hand the needs of our communities. This new initiative will dovetail perfectly into several bills that we are working on”.
Senator Llew Jones, from Conrad, presented with Rosendale, and gave a summary of the School Funding Bill he is working on. The bill is designed to give relief to the school districts affected by oil and gas development. It would allow additional oil and gas revenue, above current limits, to be transferred into neighboring districts rather than going back to Helena. It would allow more flexibility within the budgets, and provide additional funding for increased enrollment at a dramatically reduced time frame. The additional funding would be for all increases in enrollment, not just a portion of that increase which is currently the case.
Taryn Purdy, Legislative Fiscal Division, and Dan Villa from the Governor’s office summarized the current status of the numerous pension systems the state manages. The total unfunded liabilities lie somewhere around $ 3.7 billion. It is quite clear that they need to be addressed in the upcoming session and some options to do so were discussed. A shared approach to this massive problem will need to be made including increased contributions from members and non-member taxpayers in order to restore financial soundness to the systems.
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