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Senate bill would recategorize lodging‑tax buckets, add 2.5% for emergency lodging and recovery for victims
Summary
Sen. Daniel Zolnikoff’s Senate Bill 409 would restructure how lodging/use‑tax revenue is split, moving from a single broad allocation to named “buckets” for tourism promotion, heritage preservation, state parks and a new 2.5% lodging/recovery set‑aside for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking; the Commerce Department supports the bill but committee members pressed for a bucket‑by‑bucket fiscal breakdown.
Sen. Daniel Zolnikoff (Billings) opened Senate Bill 409 by describing a rewrite of lodging/use‑tax distributions that, he said, replaces a vague single line in statute with explicit spending “buckets” and reduces an auditing problem created by last session’s language.
"We got rid of that 63% and did the adjustment of the percentages," Zolnikoff said, explaining the bill moves the allocation point to receipt and enumerates shares for tourism marketing, heritage preservation, state parks and other programs. Under the proposal, 24.5% would go to the Department of Commerce for tourism media and advertising; other buckets include agritourism, rural/under‑visited area pilot projects, heritage preservation and a 2.5% set‑aside for emergency lodging and recovery for victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.
Mandy Rambo, deputy director and acting…
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