Citizen Portal
Sign In

Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!

Lawmakers briefed on size of DPHHS budget, FMAP trends and pressure on tobacco funds

Montana Legislature — Joint Policy and Budget Committee with House Human Services
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Legislators viewed an LFD interactive tool showing the Department of Public Health and Human Services is the state’s largest spending agency and discussed Medicaid totals, a roughly $62.4% FMAP for 2025, and the fiscal risk from falling tobacco revenue and possible federal match changes.

HELENA — Lawmakers on a joint policy-and-budget committee were shown a new Legislative Fiscal Division (LFD) interactive tool and were warned Friday that shifts in federal matching rates and falling tobacco revenues could leave Montana scrambling for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to sustain Medicaid and other public-health services.

Nick Van Brown of the Legislative Fiscal Division demonstrated the web-based “state of Montana expenditures” tool, showing fiscal 2024 spending by section, fund type and agency. "This is the expenditures for fiscal 2024," Van Brown told members as he navigated charts that break out general fund, state special and federal dollars and allow members to toggle between ongoing and one-time spending.

The presentation framed the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) as the largest chunk of the state budget. LFD analysts then summarized the governor’s…

Already have an account? Log in

Subscribe to keep reading

Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.

  • Unlimited articles
  • AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
  • Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
  • Follow topics and more locations
  • 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
30-day money-back on paid plans