Bullock to lawmakers: Cut your own spending first

HELENA (AP) — Montana Gov. Steve Bullock used his veto power Thursday to send a message to lawmakers: Cut your own spending before reducing other government agencies’ budgets.

Bullock used what is called an amendatory veto to send back to state lawmakers the first bill that crossed his desk this year, the so-called “feed bill” that funds legislative session operations.

The veto included a recommendation that lawmakers reduce the nearly 15 percent increase in funding they approved for themselves to 1.46 percent, which equals the spending increase in Bullock’s two-year budget proposal.

Bullock criticized lawmakers for increasing funding for their own operations from $10.1 million in 2015 to $11.5 million in this year’s bill, while planning deep government agency spending cuts to fix the state’s budget shortfall.

“I’m asking them in this amendatory veto to rethink this unwise choice,” Bullock said in his first news conference of the legislative session. “This is not the year to grow by such leaps and bounds. It’s irresponsible.”

In his veto letter to House Speaker Austin Knudsen, Bullock recommended cutting $1.3 million from the bill. Under an amendatory veto, the House and Senate can approve or reject the governor’s recommendation and send the bill back to him for reconsideration.

The bill is scheduled for debate on the House floor on Friday.

Republicans who control the House and Senate said they had no warning Bullock’s veto was coming, and that having the bill in limbo could create a cash flow problem for them just a month into the 90-day legislative session.

House Republican leaders declined to say whether they would act on the governor’s recommended cuts, but Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas, R-Stevensville, was unequivocal.

“We won’t accept them,” Thomas said.

He called the governor’s action a petty attempt to weaken the legislative branch. That thought was echoed by House Majority Leader Ron Ehli, R-Hamilton, and House Appropriations Chairwoman Nancy Ballance, who said the cuts would harm the Legislature’s ability to get its work done.

Ehli added that he is disappointed because Republican majority leaders took Bullock at his word that he would work with them on the budget.

“The governor has chosen to work against the whole Legislature, not just Republicans but the whole Legislature, and meddling in the process of the Legislature when we’re trying to work together with him to get things done,” he said.

Last month, the entire Republican caucus gathered in a news conference to blast Bullock’s budget proposal as a “shell game” and to accuse the governor of lying about the budget shortage. Meanwhile, governor’s officials have said the budget cuts the Republicans are considering could affect critical services.

Bullock declined to say whether he would veto the bill if it is returned to him unchanged.