HELENA — Gov. Steve Bullock has signed a two-year, $10.3 billion budget that was a source of tension throughout the legislative session as he and Republican lawmakers debated different ways to close a revenue shortfall.
Bullock signed the budget Tuesday without making any line-item vetoes, the first time he’s done so since becoming governor in 2013.
Bullock’s original budget plan included cutting spending, raising taxes and shifting money from special accounts to leave $300 million in reserve. The Republican-led Legislature resisted the governor’s tax hikes and made deeper spending cuts before returning some of the money. The final 2017-2018 budget will leave an estimated $200 million in reserve and it increases spending by about half a percentage point over the last budget.
Lawmakers also passed a separate bill creating a rainy day fund and mandating certain spending cuts if revenues drop again.
Bullock spokeswoman Ronja Abel said the governor believes that signing the budget bill was his best option, even if it wasn’t what he proposed, and that he is hopeful that the cuts outlined won’t be needed.
“Those cuts would not be necessary had the Legislature adopted the governor’s budget, which included a series of tax fairness proposals that would have invested in Montana workers, families and communities,” she said.
The budget was among the 12 bills signed and one vetoed by the Democratic governor on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The approved bills include a measure to allow Talen Energy to borrow up to $10 million a year from the state to keep two of the Colstrip power plant’s four units operating until 2022. The company and co-owner Puget Sound Energy agreed to close the two older units of the coal-fired plant by that year to settle a lawsuit brought by environmentalist groups.
Talen representatives have said the company is losing as much as $30 million a year on Colstrip, and that even the loan is no guarantee that it can keep the units running until 2022.
Abel said the bill is a tool to help communities dependent on coal plants in the short term. The bill’s sponsor, House Speaker Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson, called it bipartisan legislation to keep the units running as long as possible “to give the people of Colstrip time to plan for the apparently inevitable closure.”