GOP Senate probing $170K state contract legislator quietly awarded to business associate

A Republican senator from Hamilton recently signed a six-figure contract with a longtime business associate without legislative leadership’s knowledge, skipping the public bidding process, the Montana State News Bureau has learned.

Using leftover funds from a legislative committee he formed last year, Sen. Jason Ellsworth signed a $170,100 contract on Dec. 31 for a company called Agile Analytics to research certain legislation following the 2025 Legislature, and did so after the idea had been dismissed by his fellow committee members.

Agile Analytics is owned by Bryce Eggleston, a former employee of Ellsworth’s whom the senator described as a longtime collaborator on background legislative work.

Approached for this story on Thursday, Republican Senate President Matt Regier said he had recently become aware of the matter and was “researching” further into the details of the arrangement. He declined to elaborate further on the scope of the probe.

Eggleston owns multiple businesses registered with the state, including Agile XO. Agile Analytics, however, was registered with the Montana Secretary of State’s Office less than three weeks before he signed the contract with Ellsworth.

Per that agreement, Eggleston is to provide an analysis of the post-enactment implementation of a package of judicial reform bills, which are among the Republican-led Legislature’s highest priorities this session.

Eggleston did not return multiple calls or texts seeking comment for this story.

Senate GOP leadership, however, was unaware until recent days that Ellsworth had signed the agreement with a third-party vendor for work that legislative staff, in large part, already does.

Regier, a Kalispell Republican, said Thursday that he has “very, very serious concerns” about the contract arrangement.

“This came to light recently for us,” Regier added. “My big question mark is how deep does this go? The more you look at it, the deeper it's getting.”

Ellsworth, in an interview at the Capitol on Thursday, said he saw no issue with signing a sole-source contract with a longtime business associate. Doing so means the matter did not go through the usual public bidding process that creates competition among vendors, driving down the cost to the state.

“It’s fortunate, you know, that I have a relationship with somebody that was willing to take this on for an incredible cost savings,” Ellsworth told the Montana State News Bureau.

Paper Trail

The $170,100 was in the account appropriated for the Special Select Committee on Judicial Oversight and Reform which Ellsworth formed and chaired a year ago when Republicans were gathering steam against the judicial branch following several adverse rulings against their legislation and procedural rules. The committee wrapped up its work in December with a roster of 27 bills, each of which are listed in the Agile Analytics contract for Eggleston to follow.

The committee was originally funded by a legislative appropriation of $35,000, but received another $500,000 from the Governor’s Office of Budget and Program Planning on April 22, a week before the committee’s first hearing.

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Of the $500,000 from the governor’s office, the committee only spent $262,827.11. Of that expenditure, $170,100 of that was spent on the Agile Analytics contract.

The governor’s office confirmed Thursday the remaining $237,172.89 was returned to its coffers from the committee allocation.

The contract, obtained by the Montana State News Bureau, was signed by Ellsworth, Eggleston, an employee from the Montana Department of Administration and a person with an illegible signature who signed a line indicating "legal approval" on Dec. 31, 2024. It went into effect on the same day, and while Eggleston is not required by the contract to begin sending analyses to Ellsworth until after the Legislature adjourns, his first monthly payment of $7,087.50 was set to be made on Jan. 14.

The Legislative Services Division, which housed the money, said it received the first invoice, but had not paid the bill as of Thursday.

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The purpose of the service listed on the contract is to provide “a thorough post-analysis of the Relevant Bills following the conclusion of the 2025 legislative session.” The bills listed in the contract are those passed by the special select committee.

The contract includes four deliverables: Evaluating the legislative history of each bill and analyzing the outcomes as they were intended; Tracking implementation of enacted bills and assessing any challenges; Determining the overall effectiveness and impact of the bills in achieving the committee’s intended judicial reform objectives; and compiling a comprehensive report summarizing Eggleston’s findings.

Ellsworth said he got multiple “quotes” from potential vendors, including a lobbying firm, and landed on Eggleston because he offered the lowest price.

The lobbying firm he reached out to, Boulanger Associates, quoted him $315,000 for “a complete analysis and reporting and tracking for 28 bills for a period of 18 months after passage,” according to the letter obtained by the Bureau.

“No, I did not go out and get bids,” Ellsworth said. “I went out and asked how much it would cost.”

Typically, to sole source a contract the state requires a public notice be posted for at least 10 business days if the contract amount is more than $100,000, as outlined in publicly available forms on the state’s procurement website.

The Montana Department of Administration, which signed off on the contract, granted it without going to bid because the funding was set to expire when the select committee officially ended on Dec. 31, according to spokesperson Janna Williams. Because of the tight deadline, DOA approved it as an emergency contract which are not subject to the same procurement rules, Williams said.

“Sole source contracts like these are used in limited circumstances and do not require posting for 10 business days,” Williams said in an email. “The Department of Administration’s state Procurement Division takes its responsibility of stewarding taxpayer dollars seriously.”

Ellsworth was also working within his own deadlines. The select committee's tenure, and therefore its funding — as well as his Senate presidency — were both set to end around the New Year. Once he was out of leadership and the committee ended, he would no longer be able to access the $170,100.

Ellsworth acknowledged the timing of the contract coincided with his own deadlines.

“Of course. I mean, that's how I have authority to do it,” he said.

The idea for setting up a contract for these services came up in one of the oversight committee’s final meetings in November last year. Ellsworth, speaking from Zoom, asked lawmakers for a bill tracker to be funded and the committee discussed it for roughly 10 minutes.

Ellsworth in that meeting expressed repeated skepticism that he could find someone to do the desired job.

“I'd like to if — and there's a big if here — I can find somebody for what I have money-wise to be able to track these bills and specifically these bills as they go through the process,” he said, suggesting “a college student or somebody that can work cheap and just keep us informed.”

Sens. Barry Usher and Tom McGillvray, both Yellowstone County Republicans, pointed out that something like this is typically a job for legislative staff members.

“I'm just curious if the president had considered just using our Senate staff to do this … so we wouldn't have to hire someone separate,” McGillivray asked.

Ellsworth ultimately made a motion for the tracker, but withdrew it after it became clear in the meeting there was no appetite for it among his colleagues.

In his pitch, Ellsworth said it would “certainly” not take a full-time position to complete the work. However, the rate Eggleston is being paid for the services amounts to more than a third of the committee’s allocated budget.

When asked about being turned down by the committee while still going through with the expenditure, he said the bill tracking he requested in committee is different from the service Eggleston is providing and that legislative staffers “only have so much bandwidth.”

Business Connections

The Montana State News Bureau initially identified Eggleston as a former business associate of Ellsworth’s through a Federal Trade Commission case in which Ellsworth was ordered to pay $600,000 for violating consumer fraud and abuse prevention laws.

Ellsworth, at one point, owned a magazine telemarking company. Federal court records from the 2008 FTC case include an affidavit in which Eggleston identifies himself as the general manager for that company, called U.S. Magazine Services.

Otherwise, none of Eggleston’s companies appear to have any digital footprint — no websites or social media pages reflecting their work.

One place Eggleston does appear is as a producer and actor in the credits of a 2016 short film called “Of Flesh and Bone,” which bears the same name as another one of his business registrations. The description listed with the film’s IMBD page is, “When a cannibal’s heart hungers for love.”

On Thursday, Ellsworth said Eggleston is qualified for the work because he’s familiar with the legislative process, and that Eggleston had completed legislative work for Ellsworth before on a pro bono basis. He also considered Eggleston to be a good fit because he lives in Stevensville, near Ellsworth’s home in Hamilton, so travel costs for both would be minimal.

“It’s somebody that I can trust, somebody that I know will do the work and is close enough that I can actually sit down and have conversations with,” Ellsworth said.

In an interview Thursday, Regier said that Senate GOP staff already follows through on “a lot” of the legislation they pass after the session.

Ellsworth is no longer the Senate President, and the committee he chaired to produce the judicial reform package no longer exists. Asked why he went about arranging the contract without telling the incoming Senate President, Ellsworth said he planned to, eventually.

“We just haven’t discussed it,” he said. “In the contract, there’s a weekly report, and that’s going to be disseminated to every member that was on that committee and to leadership.”

Senate friction

Following the 2024 election, Ellsworth put his hat in the ring again for Senate President, but lost to Regier in a secret ballot during legislative caucuses late last year before the session began. Weeks later, on the first days of the 2025 legislative session, deep fissures developed in the Senate after disputes over committee assignments. The debate put all 18 Democrats, Ellsworth and eight other Republicans (a majority of the body) at odds with the rest of the chamber, leaving Regier and his Republican allies on the back foot to start the session.

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Regier said that he and Ellsworth have “quite a bit of differences,” and mentioned the dispute over committee assignments.

“That's no secret that that's a political rub, but it's not a personal thing,” he said.