Legislative Issue Survey - State Budget Results

In the final installment of our Legislative Issue Survey to Montana Chamber members, we asked a variety of questions about spending proposals. In four separate questions, members were asked if some, all or none of the state budget surplus should be spent on education, shoring up the state pension funds, replenishing what what taken out of the Work Comp Old Fund, and economic development. Here are the results.

For new spending on education, 70.7% of members favored using some of the surplus for education, 13.1% favored using none of the surplus, and 2% favored using all of the surplus for education.

For shoring up the state pension funds, 56.6% of members favored using some of the surplus , 7.1% favored using most of the surplus, and 24.2% favored using none of the surplus.

For replenishing the Work Comp Old Fund, 57.6% of members favored using some of the surplus, 36.4% favored using none of the surplus.

For spending on economic development, 73.7% of members favored using some of the surplus, 16.2% favored using none of the surplus, and 3% favored using all of the surplus for economic development.

Comments

[Jeff Mangan]

I assume the education question was a general one. Perhaps future questionaires could break it out as to K-12 and higher ed. Same with the economic development question. Tech transfer, investment capital, etc could be included. Appreciate the posts.

[montanamainstreetblog]

Thanks for the comments, Jeff. I think you make some good points. I'll try and make those distictions in future surveys.