By Alanah Griffith EBS COLUMNIST
Hello Rep. readers. It has been a moment since I have written to you, my constituents. Over the last few weeks, we went through transmittal where most of the bills in the House needed to have a final vote and move over to the Senate and vice versa. Therefore, I was at the Capitol at six in the morning and was leaving around eight or nine every night.
In this column, I will discuss what the transmittal process means to you, and finish by discussing a piece of legislation that is on its way to Gov. Gianforte’s desk and will benefit West Yellowstone and Big Sky.
Transmittal is the two weeks before a deadline requiring all bills without fiscal notes to have final votes in their associated chambers, otherwise the bill will die. During this time, a committee might hold first readings on 15 bills a day and also do executive action on another 15 bills that same day.
In the judiciary committee, we started at 7 a.m. each day of transmittal week and I would end my day late into the evening. For the last few days before the deadlines, committees no longer met and we simply had “floor” sessions to argue, then vote on bills. We typically heard between 50-70 bills a day and diligently worked until all were heard and voted upon.
After the final vote, I headed home. During my week off I met with many people in Big Sky and West Yellowstone, going over the various bills that passed , what was coming from the Senate and what we needed to focus on over the interim and for the next session. I met some people who I had never had a chance to speak to before, and I look forward to continuing to work with you all in the next two years.
Outside of the general bipartisan bills that will benefit our district (Medicaid Expansion, STARS Act for our schools, etc.), there is one bill in particular that will greatly benefit both Big Sky and West Yellowstone: SB 172.
There are two types of resort tax that we can implement. One is the 3% general tax and the other is the additional 1% tax to be used for infrastructure. SB 172 adds workforce housing to the definition of infrastructure. This bill will allow any resort tax district to use their 1% infrastructure tax to build workforce housing, including rentals and restricted housing owned by employees in the district.
This bill made it, unedited, through the Senate and through the House Committee. It hit the floor on March 20. Knowing that this bill is one of the most important for our district, I came to the floor prepared to provide testimony for this bill. When I sat down, I noticed that there was a proposed amendment to the bill. This happens all of the time. Any member of the House can provide an amendment to any bill and no notice is required.
I read through the amendment and realized that it proposed a major change. The amendment would have required all workforce housing to be rentals. We would not be able to use our funds to build owner-occupied workforce housing as we are proposing in the Cold Smoke development. Similarly, West Yellowstone would see impacts on its 80 acre project.
Rentals are relatively easy to fund. There are a number of federal and state grants and non-profit programs that have funds for rentals. What is not available are funds to build covenant restricted, owner owned workforce housing. Ownership of an affordable home is key to recruiting and retaining teachers, firefighters, police officers, city staff and other essential workers. They do not want to move to Big Sky or West Yellowstone with their families and know that home ownership will never be attainable to them. Even if rentals are available, they will move out of the community to another where they can afford a home.
I quickly talked about the amendment with the House member bringing it. He was unwilling to consider not bringing the amendment. As an attorney, he felt that it needed a definition and it was too late to offer a different definition, even if he wanted to do so. I quickly began to discuss the amendment with other legislators who also had resort districts. I was unable to get to them all, but I realized that I had bipartisan support to attempt to kill the amendment. When Rep. Bill Mercer (R) introduced the amendment to the bill, what ensued was a bipartisan argument to vote no on the amendment. After a great deal of debate, the amendment was killed by a vote of 38 to 62. Now the bill awaits as a signature on the Governor’s desk.
