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Committee hears bill to lower unemployment tax rates, add DMV cross-check to speed claims
Summary
House Bill 210 would add a lower tier to Montana’s unemployment tax table and allow Department of Labor to cross-check applicants’ driver’s license data with Motor Vehicle Division records to reduce fraud and speed benefits, officials said.
Representative Steve Fitzpatrick introduced House Bill 210 as a three-part package: reduce employer unemployment tax rates within Montana’s existing tax table, add a real-time identity cross-check with the Motor Vehicle Division to combat fraud, and clarify accounting for penalty and interest dollars so they can be carried across fiscal years.
Sarah Swanson, commissioner of the Montana Department of Labor and Industry (DLI), told the committee Montana’s unemployment trust fund is strong and that actuarial work showed room to add a lower tax tier while preserving fund health. “We have an ending fund balance as of January 16th of this year of $643,420,988,” Swanson said, and she introduced the department’s actuary, Robert Pavosevich, who testified on the fund calculations.
Pavosevich described Montana’s tax-table trigger system (an 11-tier schedule enacted decades ago) and said the actuarial review showed room for a lower rate so long as triggers are preserved; the bill would add an additional lower tier activated when the trust-to-wages ratio exceeds a defined threshold. Swanson said the department’s preliminary fiscal estimate shows reduced employer costs and projected trust savings: the fiscal note circulated during the hearing estimated roughly $12,000,452 in other revenues reductions in fiscal 2025 and rising through fiscal 2029 (the department provided specific numbers during Q&A).
Swanson and other witnesses emphasized the fraud-combatting component. DLI’s new claims platform (“Muse”) and an updated Motor Vehicle Division system use the same vendor, she said. The bill would let the systems perform an automated pass/fail match of name and driver’s-license number without transferring underlying citizen data; a “green light/red light” match could speed claim processing and reduce the need for mailed-verification codes.
“By verifying a claimant’s identity as early in the process as possible, we can ensure that benefits only go to those who actually need them,” Swanson said, adding that a non-match would not bar benefits — it would prompt the existing manual verification process. Swanson said the department also wanted to allow penalty and interest dollars to be carried across fiscal years for system maintenance and modernization rather than revert automatically.
Witnesses supporting the bill included business and labor groups, and the governor’s workforce advisor said the change would help employers and preserve the trust fund. Labor representatives also testified in favor of the identity-verification measures.
No committee vote was recorded on HB 210 at the hearing. The department agreed to provide additional actuarial detail and a fiscal note to committee members.
