Bill Raising State’s Minimum Wage Rate Shelved

NFIB-backed tort reform, anti-theft measures advance

State Director Ronda Wiggers reports from Helena on the small-business agenda for the legislative and political week ending February 10

The Montana Legislature spent a lot of time on social issues this week. It also had a number of committees that simply had no hearings. I have learned that there are over 200 bills in editing as of today. This means that they will all need to be introduced, heard, and pass the floor in the next 15 days. We could get busy by the end of next week.

The Week in Review

On Tuesday (February 7), the House Business & Labor Committee tabled House Bill 201, which called for raising Montana’s minimum wage to $11.39 per hour.

The Senate Business & Labor Committee passed Senate Bill 216, a tort reform bill that, among other things, attempts to protect retailers from product liability if they did not alter, assemble or manufacture the product and had no way of knowing there could be a defect or unsafe condition. NFIB testified in favor of this bill.

On Thursday (February 9), NFIB testified in the House Business & Labor Committee in opposition to HB 386, which would establish a requirement for paid sick days. The committee held a good discussion about the topic, but the bill will likely not move out of committee. It has currently taken no action.

Hearings of Interest This Week

Tuesday, February 14, 9 a.m., the Senate Tax Committee will take up House Bill 212, which would increase the business equipment tax exemption from $300,000 to $1 million.

Bills NFIB is Monitoring (Everything new in italics)

HB 161 Generally revise computer crimes
This bill adds substantial language to the crime of unlawful use of a computer to update the statute. It passed the House on a final vote of 74–25 and is now headed to the Senate to continue its journey through the process. It has been assigned to Senate Judiciary, but no hearing date is scheduled.

HB 389 Create a mini COBRA law for small employer health insurance plans
As the title states, this creates the requirement for businesses with less than 20 employees to offer insurance coverage for 18 months – longer in some specific cases – for terminated employees. As with COBRA, the employee is obligated to pay the premium. This was heard in House Business & Labor no action was taken.

SB 22 Revise independent contractor laws
NFIB offered support for the amendments to this bill. The intent is to clarify that if a business did all the right things to determine that it was hiring an IC to do work, and that IC expired for some reason, the business would not be liable for employment taxes and workers’ compensation. This has proven a bit more difficult to draft than expected. Although heard in Senate Business & Labor on January 19, the committee has taken no official action.

SB 24 Require corporations to file electronic income tax returns
It has passed the Senate with some of the amendments requested by NFIB and the CPA’s. We will continue to work on details during its House hearings.

SB 95 Generally revise theft laws that addresses theft and bad checks
The bill has finally passed the Senate! Corrections added a pretty hefty fiscal note to prosecute and offer public defenders. We argued that either we go back to the previous law and the state pays for prosecuting theft or small businesses, and in turn, their customers, pay for the theft. One method should decrease the amount of petty theft and bad checks, the other encourages the behavior. The committee chairman has indicated that they will vote on this on Tuesday.

SB 267 Revise laws related to State Fund and government agencies
This bill was pulled at the sponsor’s request as the State Fund felt that they had a better alternative bill to bring forward.

SB 270 Prohibit employee termination for legal social media posts
This bill is in Executive Review and pretty much does exactly as the title says. This only applies to personal social media accounts, not those intended for business-related purposes. The ability to terminate if an employee uses social media to disclose trade secrets, releases proprietary, confidential or financial data, or conducts criminal defamation remains in the law. This bill was heard in the Senate Business & Labor Committee where it was amended to be a little more employer friendly and then passed out to the Senate floor.

LC 172 Generally revise online commerce law
This legislation is an attempt to thwart those who shoplift merchandise and then sell it online. This bill defines a “third party seller” as someone who sells online who is NOT a wholesaler for the marketplace platform and/or does NOT disclose their business address and contact information to the general public.

If the “third party seller” sells over $20,000 in merchandise in one year, the platform operator is required to obtain information to determine who they are, where they are located and where they bank. The contact information must be disclosed to the public at that time. If the seller refuses to disclose this information, they are to be blocked on the marketplace platform,

Pro – the increase in shoplifting has hurt many businesses and online marketplaces make it easy for shoplifters to sell their goods.

Con – this will likely result in an extra step of paperwork for legitimate businesses wanting to market online and those that are stealing will simply create numerous fake business names to keep all of them under $20,000 in sales.

This issue has been addressed with federal legislation that was signed by the president in December. Rules have not been promulgated, so we do not yet know what this will require of small business owners. We will suggest to the sponsor that he may want to wait for the federal regulations prior to creating a special law in Montana.

Stay Connected

This link will take you to the list of bills we are watching. It is an active link that will automatically update as information changes. Once a bill is drafted, you can click on the link to read the text. As the bill moves through the process, you can track its progress and even watch the recordings of the hearings through this page.

Previous Weekly Reports and Related Information