Senator Taylor wants transparency in budgets

Greetings from Helena! We passed the revenue estimate out of the Senate Taxation Committee last week. The 2013-year estimate is nearly $2 billion, and the 2014 and 2015 estimates are over $2 billion each year. That’s lots of money.

Besides the revenue estimate, we heard Senate Bill 108 by Senator Taylor Brown. This bill extends the endowment credit for Montana charities until 2019. This tax credit is used by about 600 individuals per year. They received a tax credit of 40 percent. Corporations can only receive a credit of 20 percent. Individuals are 95 percent of the users of this option.

Since 1997 Montana charities have received more than $160 million. The line of supporters was way out into the hall; Catholic Conference, YMCA, Taxpayer’s Association, Departure of Revenue, hospitals, Hope Project and many, many more. I think this will pass the legislature.

I am very worried about the accuracy of the base budget numbers.

Government accounting and budgeting is complicated and arbitrary in my opinion. The state checkbook should be online. Other states have enacted this transparency. Next week I’ll tell you about some of the major problems we found with agencies moving funds around.

Serving on local government, I am learning so much more about subdivisions and gravel pits. One county attorney defined the word “sue” for us; slow, unpredictable and expensive. Everyone laughed, but it sure rings true.

I presented Senate Bill 114, identical to a bill I carried in 2009, to the Senate Business and Labor Committee last week. This bill stops double taxation when you purchase a vehicle that has months left on the license tag. This is the way things were when you bought a used car before 2005.

So far we have a grand total of 1,595 bills, but 861 are on hold. There were 2,026 bills at this point in the 2011 session. When we all get here from around the state, we discover many similar bills and work together on many of them. That is why so many are on hold.

We welcomed three pages from our area last week. Mikayla and Matthew Meuli were working in the Senate and Ian Ricketts paged in the House. They did such a wonderful job.

Please leave me a message at the legislative phone line 444-4800 or call my cell 253-8766. My email is jannatay lor@montana.com. Never forget, I work for you!

Senator Janna Taylor,

Dayton