Montana Senate Ethics panel adopts conceptual amendment, directs staff to finish committee report

The Montana Senate Ethics Committee on Monday approved a conceptual amendment encompassing multiple editorial changes to its committee report on procurement and contract questions involving Agile Analytics and directed staff to prepare a clean, track-changed draft for review at 11 a.m. the following day.

The panel’s action came after roughly 50 minutes of line-by-line review and debate over how to present testimony from the legislative auditor and other witnesses, how to quote audit findings, and how to record that the respondent, Senator Ellsworth, did not testify. Committee members asked staff to incorporate agreed wording, add exhibit citations where missing, and retain block quotations from the auditor where appropriate.

Chair Mandeville opened the meeting noting a quorum and that the committee was returning to "continue our discussion of [the] committee report." Members and counsel walked through suggested edits circulated by Senator Pope and others, turning parenthetical language into declarative sentences, aligning block quotes with exhibit citations, and debating whether to delete or reframe…