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Representative abandons plan to redirect lodging/gas-tax revenue; committee tables funding formula bill
Summary
Representative Scott Rosensweig presented HB 784 on redistributing lodging and gas-tax funds to better support 'gateway' counties that carry tourism traffic. Department of Transportation and county associations opposed changing allocations without adding money; the committee tabled the bill.
Representative Scott Rosensweig framed House Bill 784 as an attempt to better align state road and lodging-fund distributions with the tourism burden on gateway counties. He described data indicating large visitor counts at Park County entrances to Yellowstone and argued that counties receiving heavy tourist traffic get little direct return from existing lodging-tax and fuel-tax distributions.
Larry Flynn, deputy director of the Department of Transportation, said Montana is underfunded for transportation and welcomed a broader discussion but warned that HB 784 would reallocate an already small pot of funding and therefore create winners and losers. Jason Riddle of the Montana Association of Counties echoed that the formula is not the sole problem; the bigger issue is the total amount of funding available.
Committee members discussed indexing fuel taxes and alternative revenue approaches. Flynn said indexing and other methods have been studied but there are trade-offs for multi-year projects and matching federal programs. Representative Rosensweig said he planned to refine the idea and return with a more workable plan in a future session.
During executive action the committee voted by voice to table HB 784.
