Senate pushes $250M bill for new women’s prison, $6M bill for closed sawmills

The tension about property taxes is filtering into debates about other bills including a proposal to spend $250 million on a new women’s prison and another bill to allocate $6 million for sawmill revitalization.

Both proposals, however, advanced this week.

House Bill 833 would set aside money for a new prison, and in an interview Wednesday, sponsor and Rep. John Fitzpatrick, R-Anaconda, said the women’s prison in Billings is well over capacity.

It houses 240 people, but he said Montana needs beds for at least 400, possibly 500.

“Unlike the men, we have no place to put them out of state,” he said, referring to a contract with CoreCivic that sends male inmates to prisons in Arizona and Mississippi.

Fitzpatrick said the bill includes a study the Department of Corrections will lead to determine a new location for a women’s prison — not excluding Billings or Deer Lodge, where the men’s prison is located, but not favoring them either, he said.

“It could be anywhere,” Fitzpatrick said.

He anticipates that study should be complete by the end of the calendar year, and a groundbreaking could take place in roughly a year. He said the current women’s prison likely would be eventually repurposed by the state.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. John Esp, R-Big Timber, said the female population with the Department of Corrections has been rising faster than the male population, and just one “relatively small” facility houses women in the state.

“There’s no option to contract with others for this population,” Esp said.

Esp said the waiting list for the women’s prison in Billings has about 85 people, and the facility is probably eight to 10 people over capacity.

“And they don’t turn over very fast,” Esp said.

The bill would allow the state to build a new facility, or a private contractor to do so and sell or lease it back to the state, Esp said.

Sen. Jeremy Trebas, R-Great Falls, said he acknowledged the problem, but he had a hard time spending so much money with property taxes yet to be resolved.

“We’re going to spend $250 million on prisons before we figure out what we’re going to do with property taxes,” said Trebas, who voted against the bill.

On a final 46-4 vote Wednesday, the Senate approved HB 833, including with support from all Billings legislators. The bill earlier passed the House 86-12, also with support from Billings legislators.

It is included in the governor’s budget.

Later the same day, the Senate also advanced a major property tax bill, House Bill 231, and the House advanced another one, Senate Bill 542, but both proposals still need to clear multiple votes to pass.

The Senate also approved House Bill 876, the Sawmill Revitalization Act, sponsored by Rep. Fitzpatrick and Rep. Connie Keogh, D-Missoula.

It passed 29-21 on Wednesday, and also raised questions about property tax bills.

The bill sets aside $6 million for loans with interest rates of a maximum 4% “to parties with the capacity to revitalize a closed sawmill and return it to commercial operation.”

Originally, the bill had given priority to sawmills that had closed in the 12 months before Jan. 1, 2025.

In March 2024, Pyramid Mountain Lumber announced it would close its Seeley Lake mill.

In the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, however, Esp proposed an amendment to strike that limitation, and the committee approved it.

On the Senate floor Tuesday, Sen. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, said in the 1970s, Montana had more than 50 operating mills, and it now has just five major ones.

In the last three years, mills closed in St. Regis and Seeley Lake, and Cuffe said the closures represent “major lost economic activity.”

Sen. Becky Beard, however, said the mill in Seeley Lake is pretty much dismantled, and it would take at least $40 million to get it up and running again, not just $6 million.

“There is not really anything left there except the shells of the buildings where the machinery was housed,” said Beard, R-Elliston, who voted against it.

Sen. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, said Montana has the lumber for the Seeley Lake mill, but it needs staffing, and the bill would help.

“We have people ready to come and do the work in Montana to get these facilities up and running. I think that’s a great thing for us,” Morigeau said.

Sen. Willis Curdy, D-Missoula, said the state sells roughly 60 million board feet of lumber a year, and the mill is located close to state trust land timber.

He said every mile needed to move a log to a sawmill makes the lumber worth less to the state. 

“This mill is located in a strategic location for the taxpayers of the state of Montana,” Curdy said.

But Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, said the $6 million shouldn’t be spent that way.

Regier said he supports the industry and remembers seeing homemade signs in the Flathead in the 1990s that said, “This Family Supported by the Timber Industry.”

At the time, however, he said that industry supported itself.

“We’re spending taxpayer dollars to do what loggers did in the ‘90s,” Regier said.

Sen. Barry Usher, R-Billings, said even as the Senate tried to help a sawmill, it was contemplating a bill that would hurt commercial businesses.

He pointed to HB 231, which aims to support residential property taxpayers, but passes on increases to other groups, including commercial property taxpayers, he said.

Usher said he was told many people were lined up to try to help revitalize the sawmill at Seeley Lake, and he had a question:

“Were they advised in advance that if House Bill 231 passes, that their commercial property taxes are going up?”