Flathead County would get a new District Court judge to keep up with growing caseloads, and three specialists would be hired to help implement a new tribal water-rights compact under a budget proposal unveiled Thursday by Gov. Greg Gianforte.

The governor's proposed budget is essentially a blueprint lawmakers can follow or disregard as the 2021 legislative session begins in earnest, though Republicans who control both the House and Senate have embraced many of Gianforte's policy goals, including his push to cut taxes and spending.

The proposed budget includes funding to add judges and court staff in Gallatin and Flathead counties. During a news conference Thursday, Gianforte said the new positions would help "ensure the course of justice is swift."

The proposal earmarks about $251,000 in fiscal 2022 and about $638,000 in fiscal 2023 for the new court positions. Gallatin County District Court would get a new judge, a new judicial assistant, a new law clerk and a new court reporter in January 2022. Flathead County District Court, which currently has four judges, would add the same positions in January 2023.

Also on the criminal justice front, Gianforte said his budget would continue funding five drug courts across the state "to combat increasing violent crime, particularly crime associated with meth." The budget would add 14 probation and parole officers across the state and boost funding for substance abuse and mental-health treatment in correctional facilities.

The proposed budget also would provide nearly $1.7 million over two years for a pilot program aimed at those being held in county jails. "This program is to assist all parts of the criminal justice system with the handling of persons arrested and held in jail in seven pilot counties," the proposal states. The pilot locations include Flathead and Lake counties, as well as Yellowstone, Missoula, Butte-Silver Bow and Lewis and Clark counties.

Gianforte's budget includes nearly $7.9 million from the state's Long-Range Building Program to improve Flathead Lake recreation access, $500,000 from the Treasure State Endowment Program for the Big Mountain Sewer District to rehabilitate sewer lines and manholes, and historic preservation grants for several organizations in the Flathead Valley.

The budget also earmarks $800,000 over two years to implement a historic water-rights compact with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which the Legislature ratified in 2015. Congress passed a version of the compact in a massive spending bill last month after it was sponsored by Montana Sens. Steve Daines and Jon Tester.

While some Republican state lawmakers still object to the compact, Gianforte celebrated its passage, saying it will spare thousands of landowners expensive litigation over disputed water-rights claims.

"The final ratification of the compact triggers a number of obligations on the part of the state," including establishing a Water Management Board and an Office of the Engineer, the budget proposal states.

State funding would be used to hire three full-time experts – a hydrologist, a water conservation specialist and a civil engineer.

The goal, according to the budget proposal, is "to implement the compact by providing technical and administrative support for on- and off-reservation water rights administration, water measurement, and evaluating large-scale rehabilitation and restoration projects which directly affect the long-term validity of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Project and the significant number of users served by the FIIP."

Reporter Chad Sokol can be reached at 758-4434 or csokol@dailyinterlake.com