Montana State Legislature

Objectives

The Legislative Fiscal Division provides non-partisan budget and data analysis to the Montana Legislature, so all lawmakers have objective, accurate, and relevant information to make state financial decisions.

Goals

With Current Staff 

1) Improve communication with legislators in-person and on the web to better meet the division's mission by: 

• Virtual and in-person outreach to legislators to explain state financial status 
• Increasing web usage by increased performance, accessibility, and information 
• Continuously improving the education of legislators through: 
  • orientation training 
  • various training opportunities during the legislative session 
  • educational materials 
  • interactive fiscal products for website integration 

2) Meeting statutory responsibilities including staffing Interim Budget Committees (six meetings per interim). Minimal data support for policy committees. 

3) Actively participating with regional and national legislative fiscal officer associations to be on the leading edge of fiscal analytics, trends, emerging issues, and best practices 

4) Continually investing in staff and developing their non-partisan, independent analytical skills by: 

• Participating in NCSL and other non-partisan training opportunities 
• Improving existing and developing new internal analytic tools for efficient LFD data analysis 
• Building interactive visualizations for LFC 
• Stabilizing data sets 

* If the LFD's request for an additional 3.00 FTE is adopted by the legislature, the LFD will amend its goals and objectives to represent expanded outreach, and data analysis and reporting resources for interim committees.