Bullock sets agenda for last year as governor

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock visited the Daily Inter Lake editorial board last week for the first time during his time in office to discuss his final year and reflect on his time as governor.

Bullock said he wants to leave the state “better than I found it” and will use the rest of his term to focus on health care, the education system, public lands and the outdoor economy.

As for the economy, Bullock said Montana’s is much stronger than when he entered office.

“Montana has the sixth-fastest growing personal income in the country. We have a lot more economic diversification,” Bullock said. He added that he will work throughout the rest of his term to work with individual businesses, state agencies and private partners to “look at export markets” and seek out new economic opportunities.

Bullock is especially happy with the work he has done institutionalizing apprenticeships and alternatives to college degrees through the Montana Registered Apprenticeship program. He said those who go through the program, on average, are “making $20,000 per year more than the average worker in Montana, and they’re much more inclined to stay with that employer.”

But Bullock acknowledged the increasing disconnect and economic outcomes among different communities in the state.

“There continues not to be a Kalispell-to-Bozeman disconnect, but there’s often an urban/rural disconnect as far as economic success goes,” Bullock said.

Bullock said he tried to address this through the Main Street Project and the Main Street Montana Rural Partners Initiative.

He said the initiative has helped “bring community resources together around the table” to work with the state and other local communities to promote job growth and economic opportunity.

Bullock also emphasized Montana’s investment in education and touted his tuition freezes that have helped more Montanans pursue higher education. He said Montana’s state schools have the fourth-lowest tuition and fees in the nation.

Bullock said his office made gains in one of his other major areas of emphasis — health care. He cited expansion of Montana Medicaid as one of the biggest achievements during his tenure.

“Twenty percent of rural hospitals were at risk of closing [before Medicaid expansion] ... we haven’t lost one,” Bullock said. He added that 57% of all registered businesses in Montana had one or more employees getting insurance through Medicaid going into the last legislative session.

“This isn’t a giveaway for those unwilling to work. The vast majority of those that receive Medicaid in the expansion are actually working,” Bullock said.

“It won’t sunset for four more years, but I’ll be looking at the Health Care Foundation [and] others to make sure that transparency metrics are put in” to show how Medicaid is actually working, he said.

Bullock said he will continue to work on addressing suicide in Montana. He said his office got “about $1.5 million” through the Legislature for evidence-based, suicide-prevention programs “both on our reservations and high schools,” to go with $2 million from the federal government.

“I think what I can continue to do on that is not only institutionalize the funding sources, but work to coordinate some of the efforts along the way, do all I can to remove the stigma and also ensure we’re trying to remove barriers to access to care,” Bullock said.

He called it “difficult” to make the controversial 2017 budget cuts to mental-health services and the Department of Public Health and Human Services, though many of those services were restored.

But a few years after a potential budget deficit forced those cuts, Bullock said he is going to leave office with a “rainy-day fund” that did not exist when he entered office.

On top of closing the last fiscal year “with $356 million in the bank,” Bullock said Montana now has “a budget stabilization reserve account, which has $117 million it in, which can be accessed for downturns.

“As you access that money you sometimes have to make some cuts. So the only way that we can guarantee that those services are going to be provided is be insisting to our legislators and say, ‘We have to be providing these services.’”

There is a “growing awareness” of the impacts of Montana’s outdoor economy and outdoor-recreation industry, which he said has 71,000 jobs directly tied to it.

He said he created the Governor’s Office of Outdoor Recreation “to promote the sector and to attract businesses.” He added that his office “did quite a bit with our state park system … so as folks are coming to Glacier they’re seeing what we have in state parks as well.”

Bullock also expressed his desire to maintain public access on the 650,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser land that is on the cusp of being sold to Southern Pine Plantations.

“Montanans have been unequivocal in saying that they want these to be working landscapes. So working landscapes means providing some fiber for the mills, it means restoring and taking care of these landscapes and it means public access,” he said.

“This isn’t a Democrat or a Republican thing. This is important not just to this region of our state but to our entire state,” he said.

Bullock said he still does not know what he will do when he leaves the Governor’s Office. He does not foresee himself running for anything, but added he would “feel compelled” to speak to a potential Democratic president if they asked him about a federal cabinet position.

“There’s things I’ve worked on, in the private sector or public sector I’d like to continue to work on. That’s everything from rural/urban disconnects to money in our elections to some stuff on health care to some stuff on public lands and outdoors,” Bullock said.

As for his legacy as governor, Bullock said he wants to be known as someone who made government function during a divisive era of American politics.

“While it might not always have been perfect, we figured out a way to get enough Democrats and Republicans to go beyond the partisan food fights of the day and say what’s best for the Flathead Valley and what’s best for their local communities. And the way that I governed in part is what led to some of these successes.”

Reporter Colin Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or cgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.