Terms Used In Montana Code > Title 17 > Chapter 7 > Part 2 - Long-Range Building Program and Budget

• Agency: means all offices, departments, boards, commissions, institutions, universities, colleges, and any other person or any other administrative unit of state government that spends or encumbers public money by virtue of an appropriation from the legislature under 17-8-101. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Base budget: means the resources for the operation of state government that are of an ongoing and nonextraordinary nature in the current biennium. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Budget amendment: means a temporary appropriation as provided in Title 17, chapter 7, part 4. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Budget stabilization reserve: means the amount of unappropriated fund balance in the budget stabilization reserve fund up to 16% of all general revenue appropriations in the second year of the biennium. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Emergency: means a catastrophe, disaster, calamity, or other serious unforeseen and unanticipated circumstance that has occurred subsequent to the time that an agency's appropriation was made, that was clearly not within the contemplation of the legislature and the governor, and that affects one or more functions of a state agency and the agency's expenditure requirements for the performance of the function or functions. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Legislative session: That part of a chamber's daily session in which it considers legislative business (bills, resolutions, and actions related thereto).
• Necessary: means essential to the public welfare and of a nature that cannot wait until the next legislative session for legislative consideration. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Present law base: means that level of funding needed under present law to maintain operations and services at the level authorized by the previous legislature, including but not limited to:

  (a)changes resulting from legally mandated workload, caseload, or enrollment increases or decreases;

  (b)changes in funding requirements resulting from constitutional or statutory schedules or formulas;

  (c)inflationary or deflationary adjustments; and

  (d)elimination of nonrecurring appropriations. See Montana Code 17-7-102

• Process: means a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Montana Code 1-1-202
• Program: means a principal organizational or budgetary unit within an agency. See Montana Code 17-7-102
• Property: means real and personal property. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Montana Code 1-1-201