Laura Lundquist

(Missoula Current) Environmentalists are anticipating another legislative battle over funding for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks after seeing a draft budget from the governor’s office.

After Gov. Greg Gianforte released his proposed budget last week, some Montana residents were disappointed that conservation programs weren’t supposed to get as much money as they had hoped.

The governor’s proposed budget for the next biennium, which runs from June 2023 to June 2025, does not give three FWP programs the full amount of funding that voters approved by constitutional initiative in 2020.

It’s not because of a lack of money in the coffers of Montana. In June, the Legislative Tax Division released a detailed report that predicted a $1.7 billion surplus by the start of the next biennium thanks to the past two years of federal stimulus bills, population growth spurred by the pandemic, the rise in the stock market in 2021 and inflation.

However, revenue will decline in fiscal year 2023, according to the report, although marijuana sales likely won’t.

“It’s disappointing,” Marne Hayes, director of Business for Montana’s Outdoors, said in a statement. “The people of Montana have made it clear that they want more financial investment dedicated to our outdoor activities. We will continue to push for strong investments in the outdoor economy on which so many businesses and communities depend.

In November 2020, with approximately 57% of the vote, the Montanans passed Constitutional Initiative 190, legalizing recreational marijuana for adults but also implementing a 20% sales tax, which went into effect in January. 2022.

Under the Initiative, the state’s general fund was to receive 10.5 percent of tax money and about half of the rest would go to public land programs, including state parks, the FWP’s Habitat Montana Fund and other wildlife programs.

But the 2021 legislature changed that somewhat with House Bill 701. After allocating $6 million to Gianforte’s addiction recovery and recovery program, lawmakers donated 20% the remainder to Habitat Montana—instead of the nearly 40% promised in CI-190—and 4% each to state parks and the nongame wildlife program.

While early estimates called for the tax to bring in $48 million per year within five years of the initiative, state estimates now call for total revenue of $171 million for the next biennium, nearly the double the initial projections. Based on this, environmentalists say about $50 million should go to the FWP under HB701.

But Gianforte’s budget proposal doesn’t follow HB701 rules for allocating marijuana tax money, according to analysis highlighted by three organizations: Business for Montana’s Outdoors, Montana Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Wild Montana.

In the governor’s budget proposal, it appears that Habitat Montana would not receive any tax money. The budget increases Habitat Montana’s overall allocation to $12 million, 3.8% more than last biennium. But all the state money – $9.65 million – comes from sports licensing.

FWP’s Habitat Montana program has a long history of providing funds to FWP to purchase conservation easements and paid land titles to preserve quality wildlife habitat. Most recently, Habitat Montana money helped purchase nearly 9 square miles for a wildlife management area in the foothills of Big Snowy Mountain south of Lewistown.

“The proposed 3.8% increase in the Habitat Montana account is a good starting point that can grow eventually,” said John Sullivan, chair of the board of directors for the Montana chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “We believe it is important that Governor Gianforte follow through on his promise to improve public access in Montana by using projected public access cannabis revenues as voters intended.”

The budget proposal gives the other two FWP programs some tax money, but not the 4% mandated in HB701. Montana’s wildlife program and state parks would each receive about $1 million in tax revenue per year, about $4 million less than they should each.

Wildlife program biologists care for a large number of species in Montana, ranging from sapsuckers to porcupines. They can be overlooked in an agency that relies on big game to generate revenue.

Montana State Parks must have the resources to manage and maintain 55 state parks. In addition, a recent reorganization of the FWP now requires the division to also oversee fishing access sites and wildlife management areas.

Another 4 p. 100 of the tax money was supposed to go to trails and recreation. Based on this budget proposal, it is unclear if any marijuana tax revenue will be added to Montana’s Trail Stewardship Grant program.

This is not the first time that Gianforte has written conservation programs on its budget. Two years ago, its FY22-23 budget gave no marijuana tax to FWP programs. But the executive’s budget proposal may differ significantly from what the legislature ultimately approves.

“Our focus next year will be to ensure that all of these funds are accounted for in the final budget so that they can be used as intended to support state parks and public trails, and to improve our hunting opportunities, fishing, hiking and camping,” said Noah Marion, Wild Montana’s state policy director.

Gianforte said he wanted to use the surplus to cut income and property taxes by $1 billion. His budget cuts the income tax rate most Montanese pay from 6.5% to 5.9% and would cut property taxes by $500 million over the next two years.

It would also increase the commercial equipment tax exemption from $300,000 to $1 million. Such changes could strain the budget once the state runs out of surplus, some analysts suggest.

But Gianforte also proposes doubling the state’s rainy day fund. The fund is currently expected to hold $117 million, which would keep the state running for about 16 days, according to the Pew Charitable Trust.

“While our budget is historic for its critical and prudent tax cuts and investments, our budget is also fiscally responsible,” Gianforte said in a statement.

Contact journalist Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.

Fed’s Cautious Tone on Inflation Sends Futures Down

U.S. stock index futures fell slightly on Monday as hawkish comments from a U.S. Federal Reserve official dampened hopes for a less aggressive pace of monetary policy tightening, Reuters reports. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Sunday that markets should now pay attention to the “end point” of rate hikes, not the pace of each move, and the end point is probably “a way to go”.

The comments from Waller, a voting member of the rate-setting committee this year, follow weaker-than-expected inflation data for October that led to a euphoric market rally last week, with the S&P 500 recording its biggest weekly percentage gains in about five years. month.

“The message is coming loud and clear from the Fed, investors should holding firm against expectations of monetary policy easing“said Susannah Streeter, principal investment and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Traders now expect the Fed to hike interest rates by half a point in December and expect a terminal rate in the range of 4.75% to 5.0% in May 2023 .

As of 5:30 a.m. ET, Dow e-minis were down 82 points, or 0.24%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 14 points, or 0.35%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 71.5 points, or 0.60%.

Growth stocks returned some gains from last week, with Apple Inc, Intel Corp and Amazon.com down about 1% each in premarket trading.

Tesla Inc fell about 2% as Chief Executive Elon Musk said “I have too much work on my plate” when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of the electric vehicle maker.

Over the coming week, investors will be watching a series of economic data closely, including retail sales figures on Wednesday.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden met on Monday for long-awaited talks that come as relations between their countries are at a decades-old low, marred by disagreements over a host of issues from Taiwan to trade.

Few bond fund managers burst into contagious laughter when discussing the market’s reaction to the latest inflation data released on Thursday. A 0.3% rise in the consumer price index between September and October – two tenths less than economists expected – sparked a huge rally in bonds. The two-year Treasury yield, a barometer of Fed policy, fell to 4.32% from 4.63%. Rate hikes have rattled markets this year, inflicting historic damage on bonds.

Between laughs, Bill Eigen, portfolio manager of the JPMorgan Strategic Income Opportunities Fund, had a lot to say about how investors are misinterpreting inflation data. “That means the Fed is done. It’s finish. They will stop now. That’s what the market values! it exploded.

Eigen is always up for a boisterous conversation about what’s going on behind the curtain in fixed income, especially when he’s doing the opposite of everyone else, which is often – and perhaps all. time. Unlike most traditional bond managers, Eigen has that freedom. Strategic Income Opportunities is a go-anywhere absolute return fund that can go long and short and is not judged on its performance relative to its peers. His thought process is different because the fund’s mandate is to generate positive returns no matter what happens in the fixed income markets.

The signs of trouble are clear, he said, even if no one is paying attention. High yield is trading at 450 basis points against Treasuries, implying that there are virtually no defaults and that the economy is healthy, if not robust. But Eigen isn’t buying it. Despite the recovery, inflation is not coming down significantly anytime soon. At the same time, defaults have started and junk bond issuers are not closing deals.

“People are celebrating an almost 8% CPI print,” he said. “This is the Fed’s fourth pivotal rally this year.”

But then Fed Chairman Jerome Powell comes back even more belligerent because, as Eigen put it, “the Fed’s job isn’t even close to being done” and investors give it back. For years everyone said “don’t fight the Fed”, but now that the Fed is the most aggressive in 40 years, clearly laying out its path, people aren’t listening. “All I do is listen to the Fed, and I believe them.”

Eigen’s thinking, as well as the positioning of the fund, tells a particular story about fixed income markets and how the world got to where it was.

Last year, Eigen watched with suspicion the Fed’s easy money policies combined with government stimulus. “It’s the most defensive positioning I’ve ever had in my entire career.” Eigen, who also heads the absolute returns and opportunistic fixed income team at JP Morgan Asset Management, holds 60-70% of the fund in cash. Last year, he sold all high-yield securities and took short positions in parts of the credit default swap market, including investment grade and high-yield securities.

He became even more defensive in January. Inflation was accelerating, reaching 5 to 6% in February, but the Fed remained immobile. In fact, it was doing quantitative easing until March. “I thought that was the definition of insanity. We are sowing the seeds of something awful here and the Fed is acting like everything is transitory.

Eigen is now patiently waiting to put the money from the fund to work. “I need to see high theft, I need to see signs of real liquidity release. I see it in some segments, like some MBS, CMBS melting completely. You see some stocks going from par at 60, but nobody talks about it. Throughout my career, that’s always how it starts.

He has a habit of running the other way. In 2016, the fund took on high yield at a time when the market hated junk bonds or, as he colorfully put it, “they were in the toilet”. Now there is a chorus of criticism for his cash position. But the fund is down just over 20 basis points, even as most core and core plus bond funds were down nearly 16% through the end of October.

Bond managers must share the blame. Since the 1980s, fixed income securities have been in a bull market, with rates constantly falling. Few people have managed money during a bond bear market. And this time around, with rates close to zero, investors had no income to cushion the declines in value.

Eigen says the double-digit losses investors have suffered highlight other perennial mistakes. With rates so low for so long, investors fell for strategies that promised more returns without more risk. “My military dad always said, ‘At some point, you have to pay the price for the things you’ve done.'”

AA trio of West Michigan nonprofits are asking for millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding to help address a longstanding and worsening labor shortage among labor providers. services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Based in Grand Rapids Thresholds Inc., based on Muskegon MOKA Corp. and Spectrum Community Services — three of the four largest Medicaid service providers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in Kent County — have requested up to $14 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding from the county of Kent.

County officials are currently reviewing the three separate funding proposals. If approved, the organizations would use the funds to provide their employees with premium pay and overtime, as well as offset the costs of technology upgrades that would help reduce the workload of existing employees.

Nonprofit leaders say the funding requests are aimed at stemming worsening rates of worker burnout and job vacancies and building capacity at their residential facilities that are currently at full capacity or under capacity. understaffed. Low Medicaid reimbursement rates that fail to provide a competitive work environment to attract talent are at the heart of the problem.

“It’s a long-standing problem in our field. It’s just really hard to find good staff,” Thresholds President and CEO Jacquelyn Johnson said. “We are unable to pay a very competitive salary because the people we serve have Medicaid.”

The primary funder of community health organizations, Network180 LLCis also limited in increasing group funding, Johnson added.

COVID-19 “brought it all to a crisis” with the “great resignation” and physical risk factors that emerged early in the pandemic, Johnson said.

“It really hit us in terms of staffing shortages and then it only got worse,” she said. “We are struggling to find staff, but other for-profit companies are also able to do things like limit their hours. We can’t — we provide 24-hour care. We can’t close early. It really became a crisis.

ARPA requests

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) offers some hope to nonprofit leaders, who are fishing among hundreds of other proposals for a share of the $127 million allocation of Kent County. After issuing a public call for funding proposals, county officials last month began sifting through more than 300 applications, including three from nonprofits.

Thresholds, with 15 residences, has approximately 200 full-time and part-time employees and serves approximately 175 people annually. MOKA, which has been serving people with developmental disabilities for over 40 years, employs approximately 360 people and serves approximately 800 people annually in Muskegon, Ottawa, Kent and Allegan counties.

Johnson said applying to Kent County was a creative solution since the three organizations are, in effect, competitors.

“The idea we talked about is this: we may not be able to expand our employee base significantly, but how about strengthening those we have and supporting the staff we have so that they can really focus on the work that we are paying them to do?” says Johnson.

Technology and equipment upgrades could help “minimize the unnecessary physical burdens they have” by making residential facilities more accessible.

Increasing overtime pay remains another growing challenge for organizations. Johnson said overtime pay, historically, has accounted for an additional 4-5% of the payroll for disability service providers. Today, it is between 20 and 25%.

“And it’s not reimbursed,” Johnson noted, adding that a reduced staff leads to more overtime. “It’s a real need in our field. I have employees who work 100 hours a week, not because they want to, but no one else will.

MOKA executive director Tracey Hamlet said the convening of the three organizations was largely driven by the need for the community to recognize the problem, which involves staff vacancy rates of 20-30% among the three organizations. non-profit.

“It’s been a huge problem for decades, COVID has made it worse,” Hamlet said. “We came together thinking: maybe this will be a more powerful proposition if we do it together.”

The proposals have so far met with a lukewarm response from the Kent County Board of Commissioners. In late October, commissioners voted to rank the more than 300 proposals based on their priority, and the three proposals from nonprofits as a whole generated low priority.

Hamlet said she was “disheartened” by the filing results and hopes to receive more clarity on how the county will ultimately approve funding applications.

However, the search for funding continues elsewhere, including for a share of Ottawa County ARPA funding that MOKA has applied for through a partnership with Grand Rapids Community College, Hamlet said.

MOKA is also taking steps and “testing different things” to reduce staff loads by investing in technology, such as smart home technology that allows staff to leave at night. Improved elevators used to move people also require fewer staff to operate.

“Sometimes if you only implement one device, it can reduce the impact on staff,” Hamlet said. “Anything useful.”

Both Ottawa and Kent counties are considering using federal stimulus funds to create revolving loan funds to help ease the area’s housing shortage by providing continuity of funding instead of funding individual projects.

The two counties have sifted through hundreds of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) project funding proposals since the summer. Affordable housing, along with the desire to create a revolving housing loan fund that could help projects on an ongoing basis, was identified as an ARPA spending priority in both counties.

Many municipalities have also considered dedicating at least a portion of ARPA funding to create a revolving loan fund for housing, said Ali Mooney, management consultant at Guidea national consulting firm helping cities and counties through the ARPA process.

“Creating a revolving housing fund is a long-term vision instead of just using the funds for finished projects every now and then,” Mooney said. “It’s a good use because it also allows people to take those funds and leverage them to continue to help produce affordable housing in the future.”

A housing loan revolving fund could provide additional financing in the form of low-interest loans to developers of affordable housing projects. Typically, these funds are maintained by principal repayments and increased through interest payments.

Under recent ARPA-supported housing revolving loan fund proposals, organizations or private donors could also contribute to the fund, and developers could apply for funding through an application process.

The Kent County Board of Commissioners will vote Nov. 14 to select which projects will receive a portion of the county’s $127 million in ARPA funds. The Ottawa County Finance and Administration Committee will consider projects that would share $57 million in ARPA funds on Nov. 15.

“In general, (a revolving loan fund) is a concept that has had a lot of support, but a government cannot invest in housing with general funds in Michigan, so it would have to be funds somewhere, which could be ARPA money,” Kent County Administrator Al Vanderberg said.

In Kent County, several specific housing projects have submitted applications for a share of the county’s federal stimulus funding. Vanderberg taking a revolving loan fund approach could support these and other projects in the future.

He added that the county would not manage the revolving loan fund if created, although county funding would initiate the process to create it. A community development financial institution (CDFI) would potentially receive the public funding, and some CDFIs could provide “significant matching potential” to extend other financial contributions to the fund, Vanderberg said.

“A CDFI partner would underwrite and administer the loans and also support private investments,” Vanderberg said. “If that is the direction the board wants to take, we would probably set up a committee to advise what we would like to happen with the fund.”

Interest in housing increases

David Sernick, who is a management consultant for state and local governments at Guidehouse, noted that many of his municipal clients were already considering setting up a housing revolving loan fund before the ARPA process. Housing in general has been a more recent priority for his clients, he said.

“It’s very clear that housing is one of those things that seems to be bipartisan in nature at this point, which is really nice in our current political climate,” said Sernick, who consulted with Kent County in the as part of its ARPA process. “It’s something that interests everyone.”

Over the summer, the Ottawa County ARPA task force recommended using $8 million in ARPA funds to create a revolving loan fund for housing. The county council also gave final approval to two affordable housing projects Aug. 23 to meet a tight schedule from project developers, county tax services director Karen Karasinski said.

Ottawa County Board of Commissioners Approved $1.5 Million in ARPA Grants for Nonprofit Social Services Samaritans for the construction of 43 affordable one-bedroom units and 10 affordable two-bedroom units in Spring Lake. Additionally, the county council also approved the non-profit developer Dwelling placerequesting $2 million in ARPA grants for a 46-unit apartment project in downtown Holland.

Both ARPA grants are contingent on Dwelling Place and Samaritas receiving low-income housing tax credits from the state in the April 2023 application round.

“A number of lenses have been considered by the (Ottawa County ARPA Working Group), and affordable housing is an area that cuts across multiple sectors,” said Karasinski, who is also a member of the ARPA Working Group. “It’s important for business and it kind of touches on a lot of the priority areas that we’re looking at.”

It was also not always clear that ARPA funding could be used for revolving loan funds for housing. In July 2022, the US Treasury Department announced a rule change to give municipalities more flexibility over how funds are used for housing projects, Mooney said.

The use of ARPA funding to create housing loans comes with certain restrictions, including establishing an affordability period of at least 20 years for housing and prices for rental housing that must be equal to or less than 65% of the region’s median income, with some exceptions. , Mooney said.

Other ARPA-funded housing uses that municipalities are considering include building new units or supportive housing for the homeless, down payment assistance programs for new homeowners, and home repair programs for help preserve existing units, Mooney said.

“I noticed there was an openness to discuss other possible ways to impact long-term affordability and housing in general, which is good,” Mooney said. “In the past, housing was something that maybe wasn’t in the forefront as much. Certainly during the pandemic it has become even more apparent that housing stock is very important, especially when it is where people needed to stay to be safe. Talking about how to impact larger communities in a holistic nature is something more communities are willing to discuss.

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By Michael S. Derby

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to contain inflation leaves it on track for tens of billions or even more in losses over the next few years, central bank experts say.

These losses will not hamper the central bank’s ability to conduct monetary policy, but could, over time, expose it to friction on the political front. Moreover, it is difficult to know how much money the Fed could lose given the very unstable economic outlook.

The Fed started losing money last month, sooner than many expected, including the Congressional Budget Office, which saw no Fed losses in a forecast released in September.

The Fed tracks negative revenue with an accounting measure it calls a deferred asset. The size of this shortfall now stands at nearly $6.3 billion and while there is great uncertainty about the future magnitude and duration of this loss, there are rough estimates.

“The deferred asset account is expected to peak in the $100 billion to $200 billion area and it will likely take 3 to 4 years to recover,” said Derek Tang, an economist at research firm LH Meyer Monetary Policy Analytics.

A Federal Reserve research paper from July had as a baseline expectation that the Fed would operate at a loss for three to four years and record $60 billion in deferred assets, based on the outlook for monetary policy then. in place. But the Fed document also said the loss could reach $180 billion if the central bank were to raise rates much more than expected by midsummer.

The expected trajectory of losses is “bad, but not too bad,” said William English, a former senior Fed official who is now at Yale University.

Chart: The Fed is starting to “lose” money – https://graphics.Reuters.com/USA-FED/PROFIT/zgvobwarxpd/chart.png

FED PAYS TO PARK CASH ON THE SIDE

The Fed is losing money due to the mechanics of monetary policy. The federal funds rate target range is its primary tool for achieving its employment and inflation goals, but that rate is managed by two other central bank rates.

By paying interest to a mix of banks, money market funds, and others, the Fed keeps the fed funds rate within the desired range. Under its current regime, the Fed now pays a rate of 3.05% on more than $2 trillion in funds poured into the Fed’s repo facility daily, for example.

That’s a big change from how the Fed managed its key rate before the 2007-09 financial crisis, when reserve levels were relatively low and it paid no interest on them. The current system was prompted by a legal change allowing the Fed to pay interest on reserves and its need to expand its toolkit to manage short-term rates in a system where stimulus buying efforts central bank bonds have created much higher levels of reserves in the banking sector. system.

The Fed finances its operations through the services it provides to banks and through the interest on the bonds it holds. It hands over to the Treasury everything it needs to operate. Last year it was $109 billion, while in 2020 it was just under $90 billion.

The Fed’s challenge now is that its aggressive efforts to bring inflation down from forty-year highs has pushed the federal funds rate range from effectively zero in March to between 3% and 3.25%, and it is expected to raise rates between 4% and 5% next year.

It is now paying more interest than it takes in from its bond holdings and other sources of income, and as it tightens monetary policy further, the magnitude of the loss will only increase. Meanwhile, it is also looking to reduce the size of its balance sheet, which means a reduction in interest income from securities.

The deferred asset the Fed uses to record its loss is like an IOU to the government. The Fed expects that when it returns to profitability, it will repay this deferred asset and cover the loss. Officials have been adamant that losing money does not affect the Fed’s ability to operate.

POLITICAL FRICTION

Fed experts warn, however, that some political leaders may in future question the loss, especially since it is driven by a monetary policy toolkit that pays banks to hoard cash. . Many of these banks are foreign, and some think the Fed might wonder why its policies are helping banks at a time when they are making credit more expensive for ordinary Americans.

English noted that the Fed’s operational losses are “not a significant economic issue,” but that the political side of the equation could become a flashpoint.

In a June article he wrote with former Fed second-in-command Donald Kohn, they flagged deficits as a potential flashpoint. The money the Fed has returned over the years has been touted as a deficit-cutting tool, and the lack of those funds could become a problem.

That said, the revenue situation the Fed currently faces is unique. For many years, he handed over money to the government as required by law, rather than building up a nest egg he could draw on when income turned negative. Some hope that Congress will remember this arrangement before suing the central bank.

“The Fed would be sitting on $800 billion in retained earnings if it didn’t have to return it to the Treasury,” Tang said.

(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Dan Burns)

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