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Reinvesting In Montana’s Economic Future – Your Support and Involvement is Needed

In the 1999 Legislative Session, Rep. Doug Mood sponsored HB260 entitled “Encourage Economic
Development via Investment in Research/Commercialization Projects.”

The bill was a product of Governor
Racicot’s Jobs & Income initiative and the Vision 2005 (Agricultural) initiative. The bill was passed into law but
used a coal tax diversion for funding. The funding source was ruled unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme
Court, leaving the programs unfunded. A special session was called by Governor Racicot for the summer of
2000 to, among other things, fund the programs through a constitutional source. Then Rep.Karl Ohs
sponsored HB1 during the 2000 Special Session. It was a bill entitled “Legislation appropriating funds from
the General Fund for programs established through the good-faith efforts of the Fifty-Sixth Montana
Legislature in HB260.”

Thanks to the united efforts of great leadership and a large coalition of partners, the following programs were
Initiated and funded or had their funding enhanced:

• Montana Growth Through Agriculture http://agr.mt.gov/business/GTA.asp

• Montana Cooperative Development Center http://www.mcdc.coop/

• Montana Board of Research and Commercialization Technology

• Small Business Development Centers http://sbdc.mt.gov/

• Montana Technology Innovation Partnership (formerly SBIR) http://www.mtip.mt.gov/

• Certified Regional Development Corporations (previously Certified Communities program) http://commerce.state.mt.us/BRD/BRD_CRDC.asp

• Montana Manufacturing Extension Center http://www.mtmanufacturingcenter.com/

• Trade and International Relations Bureau http://businessresources.mt.gov/BRD_tir.asp

The 1999 session sun-setted the programs after 5 years. In the 2005 session, that sunset was moved to 10
years, meaning that the programs now are schedule to sunset in 2010, necessitating their renewal in the 2009
session.

Prior to inclusion in this report, each program went through a review by a subcommittee of Montana Economic
Developers Association (MEDA) to evaluate the involved economic development programs, determine which
should be reauthorized, what funding levels should be and what modifications, if any, should be made for
program improvement.

This report has been assembled as a result of the committee’s study and demonstrates each program’s
strengths, purpose and success.

Once again a call has gone out to form a coalition to insure that these proven and successful endeavors may
continue far beyond their sunset of 2010.

Please contact your local legislators http://leg.mt.gov/css/find%20a%20legislator.asp and let them know you want them to support these valuable programs.

Full Report: http://www.matr.net/files/EcoDevoFundingBulletLayout02212008noamounts.pdf

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