{"id":17336,"date":"2017-04-26T17:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T23:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=17336"},"modified":"2017-04-26T17:00:12","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T23:00:12","slug":"legislative-update-wednesday-april-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/04\/legislative-update-wednesday-april-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Wednesday, April 26"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_17337\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 140px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-17337 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-26-at-4.47.50-PM.png\" alt=\"Eric\" width=\"140\" height=\"204\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eric Moore<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>Infrastructure-funding bill tweaked<\/h4>\n<h6>By Cole Grant<\/h6>\n<p>The House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to revive and tighten up a bill that would borrow money to pay for some infrastructure projects, like improvements to parks and public schools.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/leg.mt.gov\/bills\/2017\/billhtml\/SB0367.htm\">Senate Bill 367<\/a>, carried by Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, originally authorized for bonding up to $98 million, but that was whittled down to around $80 million.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, the new amendments cut a little less than half of the funding for the quality-schools grant program. That would fund things like building repairs and fire system upgrades for public schools throughout the state.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, whose infrastructure bill failed earlier this month, supported the bill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the amendments have been well thought out, well put together, and cover some things I had been involved in trying to make happen &#8230; so I think it\u2019s time to move it forward,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Since this is a bonding bill, the House will need a two-thirds vote to pass it. Infrastructure has proven to be a sticking point as the Legislature draws to a close.<\/p>\n<p><i>Cole Grant is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n<h4>Budget adjustments agreed to<\/h4>\n<h6>By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n<p>A panel of lawmakers advanced a bill Wednesday that would make adjustments to the statewide budget, and other bills that the Legislature has already passed.<\/p>\n<p>A free conference committee, comprised of members from the Senate and House, passed \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/leg.mt.gov\/bills\/2017\/billhtml\/SB0095.htm\">Senate Bill 95<\/a>, and amended it several times to include adjustments to multiple bills. One of those changes is establishing\u00a0a set tax of $825 instead of a percentage tax on newer vehicles that cost more than $150,000.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, supported the amendment Wednesday at the hearing, recorded by the Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had a percentage tax on these high-priced vehicles concept prior to negotiations with the industry,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They felt this more palatable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Randy Brodehl, R-Kalispell, also supports the amendment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were all probably equally unhappy with it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That makes it a pretty good amendment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The bill will go to both the House and Senate for a final vote before it can go to Gov. Steve Bullock.<\/p>\n<p><i>Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Infrastructure-funding bill tweaked By Cole Grant The House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday to revive and tighten up a bill that would borrow money to pay for some infrastructure projects, like improvements to parks and public schools. Senate Bill 367, carried by Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, originally authorized for bonding up to $98 million, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":17337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1122],"class_list":["post-17336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-montana-legislature","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17340,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17336\/revisions\/17340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}