House committee reviews $92 million supplemental spending requests in House Bill 3

HELENA — The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday opened a hearing on House Bill 3, the session’s supplemental appropriations bill, hearing agency summaries and questions from legislators but taking no executive action.

House Bill 3 would provide one-time and some continuing appropriations to cover fiscal-year 2025 shortfalls and emergent needs. “House Bill 3 is the supplemental bill,” sponsor Representative Lou Jones, House District 18, told the committee during his opening remarks.

Why it matters: The bill would fund immediate gaps in agency budgets that officials said cannot wait until the next biennium. Agency witnesses described staffing-driven overruns at the Montana State Hospital and Montana Veterans Homes, higher-than-expected outside-counsel costs for indigent defense, infrastructure and safety work at correctional facilities, and other program shortfalls that administrators said would jeopardize operations without supplemental funding.

What agencies asked for - Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS): Jason Harlow of the Governor’s Budget Office said the request includes $22,200,000 of general fund for the health facilities division to address shortfalls driven largely by contracted clinical staffing at the Montana State Hospital and reduced revenue for Montana Veterans Homes. Kim Aiken, chief operating officer for DPHHS, told the committee that $3,300,000 of that total is tied to reduced cigarette-tax revenue for the Montana Veterans Home and the remainder is associated primarily with contract staff costs at the state hospital. Aiken and other witnesses said the department has relied on travel nurses and contract clinical staff since the public-health emergency, increasing…