HELENA — On a partisan vote, a budget subcommittee on Monday stripped from the state budget the money to pay for the operation of the airplane used by Gov. Steve Bullock.

Rep. Brad Tschida, R-Missoula, made the motion, and the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government approved it 4-2. The panel’s four Republicans voted for it, while its two Democrats voted no.

The money was sought to pay for $662,000 for the operating costs of the Beechcraft King Air plane and pay the pilot’s salary and benefits.

“At $1,650 an hour, it seems like there were better uses of these resources,” Tschida said.

In response, Bullock’s budget director Dan Villa said later, “We have a governor representing 147,000 square miles and doing that in a car?”

Last month Bullock got a call about a pipeline oil spill in Eastern Montana, Villa said.

“The governor has a choice: He can get out there the next day in a plane, or wait 72 hours and drive,” the budget director said.

Tschida said he examined the plane’s flight log for fiscal 2014, when there were 147 flights. He said 72 were short-term flights of an hour or less to places like Butte, Great Falls or Missoula, while 10 flights were maintenance-related.

The governor wasn’t a passenger on 24 of the flights, he said, but the plane was used by the lieutenant governor or state agencies.

Tschida said Bullock could have flown commercially to six of the locations, places such as Denver, Colorado Springs, Seattle or Edmonton, Alberta.

On 47 other flights, including 16 to Billings, Bullock could have chartered planes, Tschida said.

He said it would be a more “reasonable use of resources” for governor to be driven Butte, Anaconda or Missoula in a state motor pool vehicle rather than to fly, since the plane needs to be warmed up for an hour before it is flown.

Sen. Mike Phillip, D-Bozeman, said Tschida if he had considered the fact that flying “is an order of magnitude safer than driving.”

Tschida said he hadn’t.

“There is a safety issue here,” said Rep. Kelly McCarthy, D-Billings. “We’re putting the governor at risk, considering the amount of time he travels.”

If the money for the plane is eliminated from the budget, McCarthy said the committee would have to increase the motor pool budget considerably.

Tschida said he will be proposing to spend more for the governor to use the motor pool, fly commercial and charter planes. It still will be cheaper than paying for the plane’s operating costs and pilot, he said.

The governor’s plane has been a political football in the past. When Republican Stan Stephens was governor from 1989-1993, Democrats went after funding for the plane but eventually dropped the idea.

Bullock spokesman Dave Parker criticized the vote. This action is yet another example of Republican leadership putting politics ahead of our fiscal responsibility,” Parker said.