Legislative fiscal staff brief House appropriations on new HB2 status sheet, assumptions and tools

Amy Carlson, legislative fiscal analyst, told the House Appropriations Committee on March 7 that staff prepared an expanded status sheet and binder materials to help members prepare for upcoming hearings on House Bill 2.

The presentation introduced a new general fund outlook page, explained how the status sheet treats passed and potentially passing legislation, and described interactive tools members can use to inspect the HB2 appropriation matrix. Carlson said the new status sheet extends projections through 2029, separates ongoing and one-time spending, and includes both appropriations and "potential appropriations" such as estimated implementation costs shown in fiscal notes. "This 2029 Status Sheet is new this session," Carlson said, adding the change is intended to help members avoid over-committing by showing multi-year structural balance assumptions.

Nut graf: The briefing was technical and preparatory rather than action-oriented. Staff emphasized how the status sheet and the House Bill 2 (HB2) matrix link together, how contingency language in HB2 affects totals, and how committee members can use an online interactive HB2 tool to trace decision packages and fund-type impacts. Committee members asked for clarifications about how items are included on the status sheet, how decision packages from the governor’s budget are handled, and how federal funding uncertainty could affect the state budget.

House Fiscal staff explained how the status sheet presents available funds and uses consistent "status report rules" to decide when a bill’s fiscal effects are shown. Carlson walked members through the general fund outlook sheet, which starts with a beginning fund balance (shown in the binders as $251,028,000,000 in the example distributed to the committee), adds 2025 revenues and legislation-classified changes, then subtracts statutory appropriations, non-budgeted transfers and the HB2 appropriation (split into ongoing and one-time-only). Carlson noted the sheet also reports outlay items and remnants of 2023 impacts.

Carlson and members discussed the presentation of "potential appropriations" — costs that appear on fiscal notes (for example, programming costs the Department of Revenue might incur to implement tax changes) that are shown as expenditures on the status sheet even if not yet funded through HB2. "Those are statutory appropriations that the legislature has approved some previous time and are currently on the books," Carlson explained of another category, and she emphasized that the status sheet attempts to show both appropriations and estimated expenditures so members can see structural impacts.

Committee members pressed on assumptions behind the 2028–29 projections. Carlson said staff use inflation, population growth and program-specific assumptions such as the potential end of state special fund support for certain behavioral health programs and changes to federal Medicaid matching rates driven by Montana’s personal income relative to other states. "When those lines cross, we're in a bad state," Carlson said, describing the structural-balance chart on the sheet and recommending members watch the revenue-versus-expenditure trend.

Representative Gillette asked how the fiscal division decides which bills to include on the status sheet. Carlson pointed to the distributed "status report rules," a ruleset staff uses to determine whether a bill is treated as passing for the purposes of the status sheet; she said the rules explain why some bills appear and others do not. Carlson and members used the example of property-tax-related bills that affect school base aid and thereby show up as assumed appropriations because of how the school funding formula works.

Members also asked about specific line items and sign conventions. Carlson acknowledged that the March 7 sheet had a confusing sign convention and said staff would "flip the signs" so that expenditure reductions appear as positive impacts to ending fund balance. She used one example: a lab-grown meat fiscal note that previously included a $44,700,000 lab cost no longer includes the lab after an amendment, producing an apparent improvement to ending fund balance once the sign convention is corrected.

On data entry and tracking, Carlson said staff maintain a database fed by manual review of fiscal notes and bill text. "We have two staff tracking entering the information into the system," Carlson said, with Nick Van Brown overseeing the database entries. Carlson and Van Brown said their team uses the database to generate the status sheet and HB2 materials but that some manual checking and coordination-language tracking is required.

Nick Van Brown of the Legislative Fiscal Division demonstrated the HB2 structure, describing HB2 as a matrix with columns for fiscal years (26 and 27) and fund categories (general fund, state special, federal, proprietary, other) and rows arranged by agency and program. He explained the bill’s three main parts — boilerplate, appropriations section (divided by sections A–E), and a rates section (R1–R9) — and showed how line items, one-time-only tags and coordination language appear in the bill. Van Brown also showed the interactive House Bill 2 tool on the legislature’s website, which allows members to drill into decision packages and filter by fund type or program.

Committee members asked about how HB2 language can be used to add contingencies or programmatic restrictions. Van Brown and Carlson explained that contingency or coordination language at the bottom of department sections can reduce or increase an appropriation depending on whether related bills pass, and that more universal policy directives would generally go in boilerplate or companion bills rather than as department-only language in HB2.

Members expressed concern about federal funding uncertainty and how rapid federal changes might force state decisions. Carlson said staff are monitoring federal activity and preparing tools and scenario analyses; she said a special session could be necessary if federal funding changes proved dramatic and immediate. "Short answer...we really don't know yet what is going to happen at the federal level," Carlson said, and staff named an internal point person tracking federal developments.

The presentation concluded with practical next steps: staff will correct the sign convention on the status sheet, continue weekly updates to the status report as session progresses, and make the interactive HB2 tool and the "choose-your-own-adventure" scenario tool available to members. The committee did not take formal action; the item was a staff briefing to prepare members for HB2 hearings scheduled to begin the following day. The meeting adjourned at the vice chairs' advisement.