Agar updates on budget proceedings

“We have a budget!” is what Senate District 20 representative Wyatt Agar reported Tuesday morning, further stating, “We voted on concurrence to HB 1 yesterday. It now is on the governor's desk.” Agar noted the budget holds mainly to the original cuts in most departments. As for education, he stated, it incurs a 1.7 percent cut, or $45 million over the next two years.

Agar further reported on two agriculture related bills he cosponsored. HB 275, which has passed, deals with drivers license revisions. “It allows farmers and ranchers to haul their produce or livestock with in a 150 square mile radius of their home property with a class c drivers license," Agar stated. “They cannot exceed 80,000 pounds gross weight. The law is similar to ones that all our neighboring states already have in place.

“As ag producers operating margins become tighter our neighbors must figure out how to do more tasks in house. This bill gives them the ability to do so with the transportation of their products to market. Every one of our neighboring states has similar laws.”

A second bill is HB 270, regarding designation of wolves in specified areas as trophy game animals for purposes of compensation payments for damages, specifying applicability, providing for rulemaking and providing for an effective date. Agar noted this bill is on second reading Tuesday.

The bill “allows land owners that have property straddling the management line to opt their property as a whole into the trophy wolf management area,” Agar stated. “The purpose of this is to allow the land owner to manage predation problems uniformly across their property.”