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Made In Montana program slashed
Martz administration officials announced Friday that they are slashing the budget for the popular Made In Montana program and will no longer actively promote it.
The move brought blistering criticism from Democrats, who called the cuts both unwise and unnecessary.
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau
Mark Simonich, director of the Department of Commerce, said Friday he is cutting one of the two positions in the Made In Montana program and eliminating another position in the agency’s Trade Bureau in an effort to cut a total of $100,000. The cut made to Made In Montana will save just over $45,000 over the year.
Despite a projected $142 million surplus in the state treasury, Simonich said the cuts are necessary because the two positions had been paid for with money from the state’s bed tax. Such money is to be spent only on promoting the state’s tourism and filmmaking industries, he said, not Montana-made programs.
Simonich said he has known about the inappropriate use of bed tax money since 2000, when, he said, the Legislative Audit Division pointed out that the department needed to find a different source of money for Made In Montana.
Simonich said he unsuccessfully tried to get some money out of the 2001 Legislature but didn’t bring up the subject during the 2003 session.
"That was not the year to be asking for money," he said, noting the state’s dismal financial picture at the time and the broad cuts lawmakers made to many programs.
Simonich said the state’s $142 million projected surplus doesn’t mean he can take whatever money he wants for Made In Montana. As a department head, Simonich said, he can spend money only within his own agency. Much of the Department of Commerce’s money comes from the federal government with strict rules about how it can be spent.
The Made In Montana program will not disappear altogether.
The popular stickers will still be available, and the state will maintain is online database of Montana-made products. However, the agency is pulling out of its annual trade show that highlights Montana products, and it will not provide marketing help to businesses that manufacture or grow products in the state.
The state will "no longer be proactively promoting Made In Montana," said a memo Simonich signed on Sept. 1 that finalized the layoff of the Made In Montana coordinator.
The employees’ last day is next Friday, said Sen. Mike Cooney, D-Helena, who, along with Senate Minority Leader Jon Tester, D-Big Sandy, harshly criticized the cuts Friday.
"What the Martz administration has done is simply wrong," said Tester, a farmer, who added that bags of his own grain are emblazoned with the Made In Montana logo. The program, he said, has been successful not only in giving Montana-made products visibility at shops within the state and around the world, but also with providing small businesses and entrepreneurs help in getting their ventures off the ground.
"Small business is the backbone of this state," Tester said.
Cooney said he hopes that Martz will reconsider the cut. Both men questioned why Simonich would cut the program in half to save such a small amount of money when the Legislature is set to convene in just three months to write a new state budget – one that could keep the program whole.
Shari Hunter, who owns Helena’s Made In Montana Store, said the cuts will devastate small business. The store, which sells only products made in the state, is not affiliated with the official Made In Montana program.
"The director has turned his back on small business and entrepreneurs," Hunter said.
Many of her clients are very small businesses – ones whose owners often work more than one job – and can’t afford to hire business promotion experts by themselves. They relied on Made In Montana to help get their businesses going, she said.
But Simonich said Made In Montana is not the state’s only, nor most successful, program that promotes small business. He also said that ideally the program would serve as short-term help for businesses and not allow businesses "to rely on a government program."
The state launched the Made in Montana program in the early 1980s as part of then-Gov. Ted Schwinden’s Build Montana program.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
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