Committee concurs on bill to codify Montana transparency website, strips proposed fee

The House State Administration Committee on [date not specified] voted to concur in Senate Bill 564, which would place the state’s transparency website into law, after adopting an amendment that removes a proposed user fee.

Sen. Ken Bognor, sponsor, told the committee he discovered the publicly accessible transparency checkbook online and learned the site has been maintained by the Department of Administration since about 2013 but exists only by policy, not statute. "It's very valuable to transparency in government and that a future administration can't or department head can't just remove it from online," Bognor said, urging the committee to make the resource permanent.

Misty Ann Giles, director of the Department of Administration, supported the bill and the amendment to strip Section 2 that would have imposed a fee. Giles described the transparency dashboards and the checkbook feature and told lawmakers that collecting a fee would cost the department more than it would raise. Don Harris, chief legal counsel for the department, also testified in favor of the amendment.

During executive action the committee approved amendment SB564.001.001 to remove the fee and then voted to concur in the bill as amended; the amendment passed by voice vote and the committee recorded proxy ayes for several members. The committee’s action means the bill will move forward in amended form; Representative Lee was identified to carry the measure.

The bill does not create a new ongoing charge to users; the adopted amendment removes the revenue component and leaves the measure as a general bill to codify the existing transparency website into statute.

The committee recorded no formal opposition during the hearing; the Department of Administration said it supports codification but does not need a fee to operate the site. The next procedural step will be to carry the concurred bill to the floor as arranged by committee leadership.