Higher education priority bills 2007

Final funding story for higher education: The 2007 Legislature reversed a long downward trend by doubling the state’s commitment to fund ongoing University System costs, such as salaries and utilities.

Regular Session
Bills we SUPPORTED

SB 16 (Hawks) - Submits to the electorate for consideration in November 2008, reauthorization of the Montana University 6-mill statewide property tax levy. The 6-mill levy currently raises nearly $12 million annually for the university system.

Voters must reauthorize this 6-mill levy every 10 years.

Status: PASSED. It will soon be on its way to a vote of the people in November 2008.

HB 95 (Olson) - MEA-MFT's bill to increase university "Optional" Retirement Plan employer contribution by 1%. Such an increase is long overdue. Currently, the Montana University System ORP plan has the lowest ongoing employer contribution rate of any plan in the country. This bill will help. Read more.

Status: PASSED.

HB 13 (Sesso) - State & university employee pay plan. This is the pay plan negotiated and ratified by MEA-MFT members and other state employee unions. It's a top priority for MEA-MFT. Despite efforts by some House Republicans to add bad amendments, it passed intact.

Status: PASSED. A big victory.

HB 63 (Musgrove) – as amended in the House infuses $50 million in one-time-only state revenue into the Teachers Retirement System, increases state-funded employer contributions 2.38% over the next two biennia, and closes loopholes to keep TRS unfunded liability from continuing to grow indefinitely into the future.

In addition to $50 million in OTO revenue, estimated biennial cost to state general fund - $27 million.

Status: PASSED

HB 131 (Sesso) - Governor Schweitzer's funding bill for the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and all other public employee retirement systems. But as HB 131 brings PERS into actuarial compliance with an increase in state-funded employer contributions, it also reduces the Guaranteed Annual Benefit Adjustment (GABA) in all public employee retirement systems from the current 3% to 1.5% for all new employees hired on or after July 1, 2007.

Status: PASSED

Bills we OPPOSED

SB 256 (McGee) - proposed constitutional amendment to limit the power of the board of regents and require that regents be elected. (McGee also proposed a bill requiring the same for the board of public education, SB 257.)

Status: DEAD.

HB 163 (Koopman) - Limits public employee lobbying of the state legislature. Read the bill.

Status: DEAD.

HB 525 (Koopman) - "Intellectual diversity” -- a.k.a. Thought Police, in Montana’s university system. This is a very bad bill. It’s no coincidence that similar bills are cropping up in states across the nation. HB 525 is part of a national movement to wedge politics into higher education classrooms under the euphemism “Academic Bill of Rights” (ABOR).

Status: DEAD. This is a great victory. Fact sheet on HB 525

HR 55 (Koopman) - spawn of Koopman's HB 525, a bad bill we defeated (see below). HJ 55 purports to "study intellectual diversity" in the Montana University System. Introduced very late in the session, it is Koopman's last ditch effort to keep HB 525 alive.

Status: DEAD