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Sponsor outlines Growth & Opportunity Trust to divert volatile revenue to pensions, bridges, water and childcare
Summary
Representative Lou Jones proposed a Growth & Opportunity Trust that would deposit a portion of defined 'volatile' revenues into a trust and allocate interest and capped distributions for pensions, housing programs, water storage, bridges, childcare and potential tax relief; proponents praised investments in water storage and bridges while opponents urged more study of complexity and coal-trust interactions.
Representative Lou Jones introduced House Bill 924, proposing a Growth & Opportunity Trust designed to capture a share of defined 'volatile' state revenues (capital gains and treasury-cash interest) and channel them into a set of capped, named uses: pension support, housing loans, water storage, bridges, early-childhood investments and an eventual tax-relief distribution once a threshold is reached.
Jones described the concept as a way to turn intermittent windfalls into a long-term trust that provides steadier funding for generational priorities. The sponsor proposed seed and jump-start transfers (including a $300,000,000 reservation to strengthen pensions and targeted initial transfers to housing and other accounts) and described multiple inflow/outflow triggers designed to turn flows on and off based on reserve levels and emergency triggers in statute 17-7-140.
Proponents from water, agriculture, infrastructure and early childhood organizations testified in favor: Montana Trout Unlimited backed the water-storage account to support existing state projects and new storage; the Montana Stockgrowers and Montana Infrastructure Coalition supported bridge and water funding. Retirement-system representatives endorsed a pension component (the bill contemplates supplemental contributions to TRS/PERS subject to an amendment under discussion).
Opponents and observers warned the proposal is complex and carries rulemaking and implementation work; they also asked whether any transfers would require the coal-trust supermajority protections. Sponsor and fiscal staff explained the bill does not remove corpus from the coal trust but may move some loan-asset servicing into the new structure and that any transfers should not require a three-quarter vote because they are structured as asset exchanges and authorizations, not withdrawals of coal-trust corpus.
Ending: Committee took extensive testimony and technical questioning. The sponsor and legislative fiscal staff offered to supply spreadsheets and further fiscal analysis and said amendments are expected to address drafting and allocation details.
