Budget process is critical for the state

Rep. Bill Beck

This week, the Legislature will start the long, drawn-out process of debating and passing the state budget for the next two years. This is a critical procedure, and I'm glad I have the opportunity to report on it to you. Accountability to the people of Montana is so essential.

There was a lot of discussion in the media regarding I-155, expansion of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program being funded. All along, I had serious concerns as to whether or not this could be accomplished in the face of declining revenues. We need to maintain a steady hand through these tough times.

Before the Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee felt comfortable including the S-CHIP money in House Bill 2, we felt that a bipartisan effort was needed to find enough reductions in the rate of growth in other programs to get the budget close to balanced.

This was ultimately accomplished. Reductions approaching $60 million were identified. The breakdown was as follows: Close to $30 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, about $10 million from education, another $10 million from general government and the other $10 million from other departments.

More importantly, we slowed down the rate of growth of general government to 3 percent.

Once HB 2 is passed out of the House of Representatives, it will go to the Senate where I expect there should be further reductions in government spending.

Currently, HB 2 contains total general fund spending of $3.3 billion in spending through 2011. That's an increase of 2.3 percent per year — a far cry from the 40 percent growth in spending we experienced in the last session.

A note of interest, almost 87 percent of the general fund budget is accountable to three areas — education (51.9 percent), human services (24.4 percent) and corrections (10.6 percent).

Stimulus spending will be allocated in another bill, which I will cover in a future column. Approximately $800 million is slated to Montana. Many of us believe that this is too much federal spending. There is a lot of pork and politics in it. It will not solve Montana's budget problems — in fact, it will pressure the Legislature to grow government even further in the future.

Congressman Rehberg spoke to the Legislature last week and addressed the serious challenges facing our country. His comments echoed many concerns that the Republican caucus has about this excessive federal spending (the stimulus' and the impact that it will have on future generations.