Lawmakers shuffle big pieces as deadlines loom

HELENA — The Montana House advanced a pay raise for state employees and endorsed the governor's proposed fix for the beleaguered pension systems as lawmakers eyeing compromise turned their attention to big pieces of legislation.

The lawmakers, with a month left in the session, face deadlines this week and next week to advance bills that spend money or deal with tax revenue. And they continued a trend Wednesday of finding bipartisan support for potential compromises between the GOP-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.

"We are trying to work together, reach across the aisle. It is good to see," said Rep. Galen Hollenbaugh, D-Helena. "Now is when you are starting to see the pieces that need to come to conclusion come into focus a little bit. We believe we have been able to find common ground and act on it."

The proposed fix to the teachers' retirement system backed by Bullock was endorsed by the House on a 63-36 vote, with a similar vote expected later in the day on a fix for most other public employee pensions. The bills would reduce benefits and ask both employees and employers to pay more into a pension system that faces a projected $4 billion shortfall.

The package was opposed by some Republicans who had been backing a plan to end the pension system for new employees and replace it with something like a 401(k) savings plan. The House had rejected that plan a day earlier.

The House also advanced a compromise pay hike plan Wednesday with a 69-31 vote.

House Republicans had been stonewalling a proposed 5 percent pay increase each of the next two years for state employees because they argued many employees actually received pay hikes during the salary freezes of the past four years. Instead they cut the overall price tag by 25 percent, to about $113 million.

There is no longer a blanket pay raise for all employees, but backers said they will trust the new Bullock administration to give pay raises to those who really deserve it. State workers lined the halls before the vote, urging lawmakers to approve the pay raise.

"The time has come to act on it and show all involved that we are indeed acting in good faith," said Rep. Kathy Swanson, D-Anaconda.

The votes showed, again, that the biggest issues this session dealing with the budget and education will come down to a group of Republicans working with Democrats trying to get compromise proposals to the governor's desk.

The House will be sending the budget bills over to a Senate in nearly open revolt against its conservative GOP leaders. A group of Republicans, ousted before the session in internal leadership elections, have signaled they will work with Democrats on some big bills.

The House on Wednesday also advanced, with a 75-25 vote, a $94 million plan to pay for building projects around the state, including $23 million for a new state historical museum in Helena. The bill was amended to spend another $75 million on building projects if a bill sought by Democrats to borrow money for those educational-related buildings fails. That bonding bill is currently stalled in committee as backers try to get the two-thirds support constitutionally needed to borrow money.

Lawmakers are sorting out the bills as the competing priorities, including some tax cuts sought by Republicans, promise to eat through the state's surplus once projected at around $400 million. A recent status sheet showed the Legislature's spending plan leaves $200 million in the bank two years from now, and would spend more in each budget year than the state is expected to bring in from taxes.

The juggling act might include Bullock's proposed expansion of Medicaid, a plan that costs the state little, as the federal government promises to pay almost of the cost.

But Republicans argue that the cost will go up in future budget periods as federal money dries up and were trying to advance a counter-proposal that used just state money for a more modest expansion.