The Montana Legislature convened for its 2025 session on January 6 with 208 bills already introduced and over 4,200 legislative proposals in the drafting process. The good news is that most of those will never become actual bills, and even fewer will become new law.

NFIB already has a number of bills that we are watching on behalf of our members.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has a process in place to assist small businesses that must comply with the Clean Air Act. Rep. Julie Darling is bringing a bill to make that process a bit more user friendly and to assign a staff person at DEQ to assist small business directly, rather than the current advisory council.

There are plenty of bills that could affect your workers’ compensation rates. A few want to add benefits and a number of them are looking to help reduce your rates. NFIB will be meeting with other employer groups and the State Fund next week to discuss how each of these bills may affect rates of small businesses. We will work to pass those that will improve your rates and attempt to defeat any proposals that would increase your rates.

Sen. Barry Usher is bringing SB 19 to increase the penalties for theft and bad checks in an attempt to cut down on the amount of retail theft many are experiencing. NFIB supported this effort last session, but it did not make it through the process in 2023.

We are currently watching a proposal that would require all businesses with more than 10 employees to offer paid sick leave. This has not yet been introduced as a bill. NFIB has opposed this proposal as unnecessary government regulation of small business.

Rep. Seekins-Crowe will be introducing a bill to reduce the maximum number of weeks a person can collect unemployment from 22 to 20. There is another draft that will address the formula to ensure that the cost savings are passed on in the rates charged to Montana businesses.

There are a large number of tax proposals. We are keeping a close eye on a few that would:

— lower the taxable rate to adjust for the expected increase in the 2025 appraisal

— lower the tax on the first $500,000 of commercial property

— and one that proposes to increase the amount of business equipment you can own prior to it becoming taxable. Of course, there are also a few tax bills we are not inclined to support, such as the proposal to tax intangible business property.

We are also watching a few bills proposing to ban the use of Styrofoam in Montana food businesses. The Restaurant Association often requests our assistance in stopping this legislation.

The website will be updated weekly with the latest information from Helena affecting Montana’s main street businesses.