Montana
Largest school district in Montana raises pay, still behind Wyoming • Daily Montanan
Billings Public Schools, the largest district in Montana, used to get a flood of applications when it posted a teaching job.
Now, Superintendent Erwin Garcia said it’s getting one application for every 10 positions, roughly a reverse of the 10 apps to one single job it used to get.
He said teachers apply from other states — “They love Montana” — but they change their minds once they realize the pay compared to the cost of housing.
“We are scratching our heads right now,” Garcia said. “What are we going to do?”
This month, Billings moved ahead on a deal that will mean a significant increase for rookie teachers, he said — from $41,803 to $46,900.
“What we want is to be the best paying district in Montana, so we want to be sure beginning teacher pay jumps up significantly,” he said.
However, data Garcia presented last week to the school board shows Billings is still behind at least a couple of nearby and competing districts in Wyoming. For example, his data shows Sheridan School District pays $54,525 to new teachers.
“We still have a long way to go compared to Wyoming salaries, especially at the base,” he said.
Montana has long been at the bottom of the heap for starting teacher pay, and Garcia told the school board that even with some increases, teachers are still behind with the rising cost of health insurance.
In 2021, the Montana Legislature created the TEACH Act to try to help increase starting teacher pay. However, a report to lawmakers earlier this year said starting pay is still low, citing a national benchmark that ranked Montana 51 in 2023. It said new teachers here earn $6,000 to $13,000 less than in neighboring states.
The act creates a payment that goes to districts, not directly to teachers, and the report from the Montana Legislature’s Office of Research and Policy Analysis said the number of teachers who qualify for the incentive increased “a bit” from 2023 to 2024, but the number of school districts receiving the money dropped.
On Friday, Garcia said more seasoned teachers in Billings also will see increases following recent negotiations, generally to the tune of 5.9%, and he said teachers who have master’s degrees and more experience are “very competitive” with Wyoming.
For example, a teacher moving from year five to year six will go from $61,671 to $65,242.
However, Garcia said if Montana doesn’t address the cost of housing, day care, and health insurance, teachers won’t be able to afford to take jobs in this state.
“Eventually, we are going to run out of teachers in the profession. And then we’re just going to have to use AI (artificial intelligence). Isn’t that sad? It’s the reality,” Garcia said.
He said he doesn’t want people to take his remarks as a threat, but he does want to be transparent about the limited alternatives. They include bringing in teachers from overseas, who sometimes struggle with the language, he said — and AI, which he said would represent “a decline of civilization.”
“If we do something like that, we’re in trouble. That’s why we need to increase teacher salaries,” Garcia said.
He said in some cities in Montana, teachers don’t have certificates, which he doesn’t want to see either.
His focus is on quality education for students and a strong workforce for the future of the state. But Montana is behind, he said; by comparison, Montana spends $315 million less on education on average on a per pupil basis than other states.
The Billings Education Association could not be reached Friday for comment.
In an earlier interview, Amanda Curtis, president of the Montana Federation of Public Employees, said year after year, elected officials “dabble around the edges at school funding” during legislative sessions.
She said Montana recently has seen 1,000 open teacher jobs, but the teachers Montana is graduating aren’t taking jobs here, and the fix doesn’t require rocket science.
“I’m tired of people pretending there’s some other complicated solution,” Curtis said. “Just f**king pay them.”
Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.
Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:
The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….
There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:
While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.
The Missoulan article includes this response:
In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”
As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.
Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.
HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.
“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.
It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.
(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)
Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026
“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”
But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.
“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.
Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.
“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.
The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.
The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.
“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.
While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.
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