The House joint appropriations subcommittee on public safety, Section D, adopted the 2025 base budgets for all Section D agencies as the starting point for the 2027 biennium budget by voice vote during the committee meeting. The committee used a voice vote after Chairwoman Nave asked if there were objections; members responded “aye.”

The vote cleared the way for staff briefings and agency presentations. The committee heard a brief overview from Legislative Fiscal Division staff and then from the Department of Justice about the agency’s budget request for the next biennium.

Austin Knudson, attorney general and administrator of the Montana Department of Justice, told the committee the executive branch’s 2027 biennium request seeks about $34,000,000 — roughly an 11 percent increase — in initiatives above the base budget the committee just adopted. Knudson said about $10,800,000 of that is a one-time state special revenue request to pay off a loan for statewide radios. He said about $11,000,000 is for trooper pay increases and to restore statutory authority for employer retirement contributions that were changed by the prior legislature.

Knudson said retention and pay are the single largest drivers of the department’s requested increases. “The bulk of the increase that you’re going to see within Section D candidly is paying retention,” Knudson said, adding the highway patrol experienced substantial departures earlier in his administration until the agency implemented a roughly $8,000 per year salary supplement from vacancy savings and other funds to slow attrition.

The committee’s preliminary vote does not itself change agency request amounts; it sets the base from which the subcommittee and Legislature will consider changes. No formal roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript; the committee proceeded by voice vote after Chairwoman Nave sought any objections.

The Department of Justice overview also flagged personal-services adjustments across divisions tied to legislatively driven retirement and benefit changes and listed multiple funding sources that support DOJ programs, including state special revenue accounts that fund the Montana Highway Patrol retention and pay fund, the motor vehicle division, and a proprietary agency legal services program.

Committee members asked clarifying questions; LFD staff noted the executive request includes a mix of ongoing and one-time items, and that the personal-services increases shown in statewide present-law adjustments (DP1) are a primary component of the requested difference from base.

For reference, the committee recorded the starting-point motion in the meeting transcript and confirmed it by voice vote; no named tally was recorded in the transcript.