A tax cut on social security income passed by both the state House and Senate is moving forward. The House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to include the tax cut in the state budget. The priority bill for Senate Republican leadership would create significant changes in the amount of social security income that’s exempted when filing Montana tax returns.

HELENA -- Sen. Cary Smith has a personal connection to a bill he is sponsoring in the Montana Legislature that would address how public schools screen for dyslexia. “I thought that we’ve know about it for a long time, so obviously we’ve got great programs going to teach kids with dyslexia how to read, but it didn’t turn out that way for us with my granddaughter,” Smith said.

More than 200 people Wednesday night came to a U.S. State Department-hosted town hall meeting in Kalispell meant to inform federal negotiations that could shape the future of an international watershed roughly the size of Texas.

HELENA — According to a study from the state health and human services department, more than 700 Montanans have died from an opioid overdose since 2000. “And the number one recommendation from that study was that we need to invest in treatment courts,” said Rep. Zach Brown, D-Bozeman.

In 2017, the state Department of Public Health and Human Services reported that approximately 100 babies every year experience drug withdrawal in Montana. Now, in an effort to lower that number, lawmakers are considering a bill to help pregnant women with addictions.

A $10.3 billion state budget cleared an initial vote in the Montana House of Representatives this afternoon, without any support from Democrats. When state lawmakers walked into the legislative session earlier this year they were in the unusual situation of having watched the last state budget, passed in 2017, collapse .

A new Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks initiative aims to engage kids in the public comment process through video cameras, computers, and grizzly bears .

A proposal to add an additional 1 percent to the resort tax that nine Montana towns are allowed to levy got initial approval Monday. The 1 percent optional resort tax increase passed its first vote in the Senate 33-16. The tax would fund infrastructure projects in tourism-impacted towns.

Senate President Scott Sales announced today that he is running for the office of Secretary of State in 2020. The Republican from Bozeman is the first declared candidate for the position since current Secretary of State Corey Stapleton announced earlier this year that he will run for governor.

While much of the state was enjoying a sunny St. Patrick’s Day, state lawmakers and scores of people concerned about health care spent all day Saturday inside the state Capitol debating two competing visions for the future of Medicaid expansion in Montana.