Pub. 5 2017 Issue 1

7 Spring 2017 The Community Banker for the third straight session, you can bet it will reintroduced and debated during the 2019 legislative session, as it has been introduced and debated in every session since 2013. In addition, the industry worked to defeat the PACE bill. This legisla- tion, which is strongly backed by the Governor’s Office, would create a local government loan program for residential energy retrofit lending, which such loans would be secured through property tax assessments. During the legislative hearings process, there were a number of propo- nents who spoke in favor of the bill, including the mayor of Bozeman, the Governor’s Office, county commissioners, and private citizens. The bill was opposed by the Montana Association of Counties, MIB and MBA. Although the bill was initially killed in the Senate Committee that heard the bill on a 6-5 vote, the Governor’s Office was able to revive the bill and get it passed by the full Senate. However, MIB was able to once again get the bill killed in the House Committee, this time for good. Given the Governor’s support for this concept, I expect this legislation to make a reappearance during the 2019 legislative session. As to the bill the banking industry is championing, that bill is SB344. This bill would allow lending institutions to obtain cosigners on loans where a state liquor license is used as the collateral. Currently, under Montana law, when and if a cosigner on such a loan appears, the Department of Revenue treats that situation as an undisclosed owner situation, thereby putting the ownership of the license in jeopardy. This bill passed the Senate on a unanimous vote and passed the House with minimal opposition. I expect that the bill will have been signed into law by the close of the session. Finally, it looks more and more likely that the legislature will sweep some of the Division of Banking’s funds, i.e. your bank assessments, into the general fund for use in balancing the State’s budget. MIB has opposed this proposal since the beginning because your assessments are supposed to be used only for regulation of the industry. However, even though it is bad policy to use your assessments for general government funding purposes, the question now appears to be how much of the Division’s finances will end up going to general fund purposes. The Governor proposed a $600,000 sweep as part of his proposed budget, and, as such, if we can get the Legislature come off of that unnecessarily high amount, it could be considered a win. With the Montana legislative session coming to a close, the Asso- ciation’s policy efforts will now turn to the federal level. MIB board members will be flying to Washington, D.C. at the beginning of May to speak with Montana’s congressional delegation to discuss the need for tiered regulatory relief at the federal level. With the change in presi- dential administrations, this may be the best opportunity the commu- nity banking industry has had in a decade to obtain some meaningful regulatory relief. We are joining our friends at ICBA in requesting that Congress recognize that Montana’s banks should not be treated the same in terms of regulatory burden as those too-big-too-fail banks that caused the financial crises of 2007-2008. Setting aside the legislative and public policy work the MIB does on your behalf, the Association also makes your dues dollar go far in terms of putting on Montana’s only community banking conven- tion and tradeshow. You will find in this issue information on our upcoming state convention. 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the MIB, and our state convention will focus on that 50- year milestone. We here at the Association are very excited about this year’s convention, particularly given that Cam Fine, ICBA’s President and Chief Executive Officer, will be joining us this year. The convention will be in Helena for the first time in many years, and we hope you can join us July 27-29, 2017 for our special festivities. Jim Brown, MIB Executive Director