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June 12, 2025
Employees of the Montana Legislature have racked up more than 15,000 hours of combined compensatory time, more than they can burn through by taking days away from work, according to the agency’s executive director.
Legislative branch workers, who roughly number a hundred full-time employees, endure marathon days during the first four months of odd-numbered years when the Legislature convenes at the state Capitol in Helena. The understanding has always been that employees could make up the difference by taking extensive time off during the 20 months between legislative sessions.
But Legislative Services Executive Director Jerry Howe told lawmakers on June 10 that the interim period is now increasingly populated by groups of legislators assembled to study issues out of the session. Every one of those interim committees requires a full host of legislative branch employees, which cuts into vacation time.
“Let me tell you that the actual number is 15,344 hours,” Howe told the Legislative Council. “So, 2,080 hours per year, per (full-time employee). You’re looking at many years of hours to get the staff back into an alignment with their comp time.”
The hours were accumulated over a few years.
The 2023 Legislature set aside $325,000 to the pay down comp time, Howe said. About 80% of the money was spent. But some lawmakers during the 2025 session told Howe they were displeased with buying down the hours owed.
Members of the Legislative Council, which includes the majority and minority leadership for both the House and Senate, acknowledged that lawmakers were increasingly asking more from their staff.
The 2025 Legislature requested more bills than any Legislature since 1973, the year following the massive overhaul of the Montana Constitution, which required a raft of bills creating conforming policies. The third-most bills requested was by the 2023 Legislature. Every bill must be written by the legislative staff, including thousands drafted that never get a bill number or a hearing.
For the 2025 Legislature, there were 4,495 bill drafts requested, 1,759 bills introduced and 3,326 amendments. Staff attorneys reviewed 1,927 drafts for legal issues.
“Because those bills are drafted, they take time of the staff to edit, to draft, and get those in position, but they’re not all picked up for introduction,” Howe said. “So, you know, there’s quite a few bills sitting out there in the drawer that take a lot of time and effort that are not introduced.”
There were 531,000 messages taken by the staff at the Legislature’s information desk.
Legislative Council members suggested limiting amendments, or the number of bills that can be requested by freshmen lawmakers. Howe suggested the lawmakers limit the amount of government studies done by interim committees. There were an above average number of requests for studies by committees this interim.
“I think an easy one would be freshmen are limited to, like, 10 bills, right? That would … I think conceivably cut down on volume, or maybe one study resolution,” said House Majority Leader Steve Fitzpatrick, R-Great Falls.
Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, asked whether comp time buyouts were proposed in the 2025 Legislature. Howe said there was an attempt to amend $300,000 into a spending bill for another round of buyouts, but the attempt failed.
But by the end of the meeting, members of the council chose to forward to interim committees all 36 requests for government studies, leaving it to committees to determine how many were to be worked on by both lawmakers and legislative staff.
—Tom Lutey
Waiting for the federal shoe to drop
Montana state lawmakers are being advised by their staff to keep their options open for a special legislative session to reconcile still-undecided changes in federal spending with the state budget passed this spring.
At issue is U.S. House Resolution 1, better known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” an amalgam of tax cuts and reductions in government services including Medicaid and grocery assistance for low-income Montanans.
“If Congress takes the action and adopts the president’s recommended budget, the skinny budget, then a number of things that you have appropriated funds for will shrink or go away, any number of things,” Amy Carlson, director of the Legislative Fiscal Division, advised lawmakers June 10.
Among the possible changes are a U.S. House-approved 5% cost shift to states for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expenses currently covered by the federal government. The state’s share would start in fiscal year 2028 under the House bill, the goal being to cut $300 billion in federal aid over 10 years. The Senate is eyeing a more modest adjustment.
More clear, Carlson told the Legislative Finance Committee, is a potential $122 million drop in state revenue because of the way Montana income tax laws are synchronized with federal income tax law. One thing the state Legislature could do in special session to avoid the revenue reduction is decouple the state tax and federal tax policy, Carlson said.
The last three months of 2025 would be a convenient time for a special session, but in 2026 renovations at the Capitol complicate things, Carlson said.
The possibility of a special session was baked into some of the legislation passed by lawmakers this spring. The state budget bill, House Bill 2, includes $100,000 to cover the costs of the Legislative Fiscal Committee meeting more often, or other interim committees doing the same. House Bill 2 hasn’t been signed yet by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte.
There’s also money for four-day special session in House Bill 863, a so-called “Frankenstein” catch-all spending bill.
—Tom Lutey
