Let’s Make Some Sense of Montana’s Budget

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State Senator Carl Glimm Friday, February 20th, 2026  11:03am  

You no doubt have heard claims that Montana’s budget grew by great amounts and then have also heard that the budget grew by a really tiny percentage- I’m going to try and put a little context to these claims.

First of all, you have heard that the budget grew by 17%. Yes, that is true. What’s also true about that number is that it reflects General Fund dollars; these are dollars that the state receives in revenue (taxes) from you, the tax payer. These dollars are what we generally focus on, because they don’t come with strings attached or to be used only for specific purposes, like the two other most common types of funds (Federal funds and State Special revenue). This large growth is in House Bill 2(HB2), which is the Budget Bill for the State of Montana for two years. This 17% growth factor from the last two-year period to this new budget cycle is important, because this is the money that legislators have the most control over. So, with the help of the Nasty Nine (RINO Senators) and the Dirty Dozen (RINO House Members), the Democrats voted to spend your hard earned tax dollars at an extreme increase.

Now, to address this idea that there was only very tiny growth, less than 1%. Well, context here means everything. These numbers were chosen very carefully, it includes all the funds that run through the State of Montana government, every dollar of Federal funding, regardless of if we, as legislators, vote on it or not. So….this number is VERY large, so to get any change in it will take a proportionate increase. This number is very misleading for another reason as well.  Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars the Feds pushed into Montana in the last 4 years, since COVID? Well, with that money finally drying up, but we still managed to increase the total spend of all dollars through State government.

This was the plan from Day 1 of the 2025 Legislative Session, when 9 RINO Republicans, voted with all the Democrats to upset the apple cart. How do I know this was the plan? Well, the most important change that they made on Day 1, was to add 4 additional members, to the Senate Finance & Claims Committee. This addition, gave the Democrats and RINO’s total control of that committee. And with that, they got their huge growth in State Government. So, the truth is the Cake was Baked from the beginning. And yes, there was a 17% increase for General Fund dollars in the State Budget. Let’s vote them out in the upcoming June Primary.