Bill would require formal process and short deadlines for legislators seeking information from state agencies

Representative Nellie Nicholl opened testimony on House Bill 376, saying the bill creates a formal written request process to clear lines of communication when legislators cannot obtain information from state agencies. Under the sponsor’s outline, a legislator would send a written request to an agency head and a specified official; the agency would then have five days to respond. If the request is not satisfied, the legislator may file a written complaint to the Appropriations Committee, which must schedule a hearing within three legislative days. The committee could vote to reduce the agency’s budget by up to 5 percent and would forward records of the hearing to the governor and legislative leadership.

Nicholl said the bill includes guardrails to prevent abuse: requests must be limited in scope (one bill/topic), legislators may submit only one such written request at a time, and the sponsor planned an amendment to cap agency workload to prevent unreasonable volumes of formal requests.

State agency witnesses raised concerns about the proposal’s timing and consequences. Missy Ann Giles, director of administration and chief operating officer for Montana, testified as an informational witness that agencies could not safely absorb a 5 percent cut and warned the proposal could be “devastating” to agency operations. Giles and Don Harris, chief legal counsel for the Department of Administration, said meeting five-day deadlines for complex requests is often not feasible and that agencies generally break large requests into parts to provide interim responses.

Committee members questioned how the bill would interact with existing rules and administrative practice; Representative Lee called the 5 percent sanction “incredibly punitive.” Nicholl said the Appropriations Committee could choose not to reduce budgets and said the bill’s purpose was to provide a narrow tool for exceptional situations where requests were repeatedly ignored. Representative Rex Rexton asked whether the process would be legal and workable; Don Harris said committees already can call agency officials to testify and that the proposed path resembles existing legislative oversight mechanisms.

Members asked about prioritization if agencies received many formal requests and whether federal funds or grant programs could be affected by budget reductions. Director Giles said cutting budgets could implicate federal funding and programmatic obligations and that agencies lack the flexibility to absorb large immediate reductions without disrupting services.

Nicholl said she would bring amendments to narrow the bill’s scope and to guard against retaliation and misuse, and she told the committee she would submit those changes before further action. The transcript records no committee vote in the hearing.