Senate Bill No. 66

Introduced By benedict

By Request of the Department of Administration

A Bill for an Act entitled: An Act clarifying that state and local government agencies may cooperatively purchase benefit services and insurance products to provide employee group benefits; specifying procedures; and providing an immediate effective date.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Montana:

Section 1.  Cooperative purchasing of employee benefit services and insurance products -- procedures. (1) To provide employee group benefits, an agency, as defined in 2-18-601, may participate with other agencies, nonprofit organizations, or business entities and in voluntary disability insurance purchasing pools provided for under 33-22-1815 if the agency determines that cooperative purchasing is in the agency's best interest.

(2) Cooperative purchases under this section may be conducted according to purchasing procedures developed by the participating parties if, for contracts valued at $20,000 a year or more, purchasing procedures, at a minimum, include:

(a) public notice in three major Montana newspapers of requirements for submitting bids or offers; and

(b) consideration of all submitted bids or offers.

(3) For purposes of this section, "employee" also means a schoolteacher.

Section 2.  Codification instruction. [Section 1] is intended to be codified as an integral part of Title 2, chapter 18, part 7, and the provisions of Title 2, chapter 18, part 7, apply to [section 1].

Section 3.  Effective date. [This act] is effective on passage and approval.

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