Increasing teacher pay, finding ways to get more money to school districts and boosting students’ early math skills are on the agenda as Montana legislators plan to take up a broad range of proposals this year addressing the K-12 system’s most chronic challenges.

On the funding front, several House Republicans have already signaled plans to tackle one of the most pressing education issues in the state: teacher pay. Low starting salaries for early career educators are a driving factor in Montana’s ongoing teacher shortage, making it hard for many local districts to recruit and retain staff. 

Montana Free Press wrote extensively last month about the still-evolving STARS Act, a proposal shepherded by Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, that aims to use Montana’s school funding formula as a vehicle to increase wages for early career educators. 

In an adjacent move, Rep. David Bedey, R-Hamilton, the incoming chair of the Legislature’s education budget subcommittee, has introduced a bill to diffuse the local funding burden on property taxpayers by levying that support countywide rather than from taxpayers in specific school districts.

Recent bill drafts also shed light on how House Democrats are approaching the issue of adequate K-12 education funding. One proposal calls for directing revenue from the state lottery straight to the Office of Public Instruction for distribution to public schools, while another seeks to increase per-pupil state payment rates for sixth graders to match rates for other middle-school grades. 

In a virtual press call with state media last month, Rep. Connie Keogh, D-Missoula, acknowledged that enhancing funding for schools without overly burdening local taxpayers will be a “delicate balance” but said she’s confident lawmakers can work with other education leaders to achieve a solution.

“There’s plenty of money in the budget,” Rep. Mary Caferro, D-Helena, said during the same call. “The budget is a matter of priorities. It expresses our values, and Democrats value public education.”

Outside the funding conversation, Democrats in both chambers have at turns drawn policy inspiration from conversations that played out during the legislative interim. Rep. Melissa Romano, D-Helena, vice chair of the House Education Committee, requested a bill to expand pre-kindergarten academic interventions to include early childhood numeracy. 

The proposal builds off last session’s early childhood literacy bill, carried by Republican Rep. Brad Barker, of Roberts. It addresses concerns raised by state education leaders regarding declining student performance on statewide math assessments and increased demand for remedial math courses at in-state colleges and universities. 

Legislators on both sides of the aisle last fall expressed interest in policy targeting early numeracy. The issue is also high on newly elected state Superintendent Susie Hedalen’s list of policy priorities for the coming months.

“As a former kindergarten teacher, we talked about ‘numbers sense’ a lot and having that understanding of mathematics, those basic foundations,” said Hedalen, a Republican who has worked as a Montana teacher and superintendent and was vice chair of the state Board of Public Education. “When the early literacy bill passed [in 2023] and we started these programs, everyone realized that math is also one of those key components to students being successful.”

Hedalen added that, in addition to early numeracy, the Legislature is poised to take up the issue of increased costs to local districts incurred as a result of recent guidance from the Board of Public Education. Last year, Hedalen and other board members unanimously adopted a resolution encouraging school districts to add a third year of math to their high school graduation requirements. 

While existing math classes and offerings through the Montana Digital Academy should give most students ample opportunity to meet such a requirement, Hedalen said, she’s met with business leaders and the state Department of Labor and Industry to discuss crafting courses tailored to students pursuing trades-based education, an effort she’s hopeful will attract state funding.

In a recent interview with MTFP, Sen. John Fuller, R-Kalispell, echoed the prediction that early numeracy and teacher pay will be prominent on the Legislature’s education agenda. Fuller said he also anticipates policies dealing with school choice and the powers of public school boards will feature heavily before the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee, which he chairs this session. 

Fuller noted that the Montana Constitution and its deference to local control will likely drive much of the debate around school boards. As for school choice, Republican lawmakers have already submitted proposals to expand eligibility for state-funded education savings accounts to all public school students and to grant a state commission tasked with overseeing publicly funded “community choice” schools the authority to seek state funding of its own. Both bills build on policies passed last session, which brought about some of the most significant advancements for the school choice movement in Montana in decades. 

Other bill language and draft titles suggest the policy conversation will touch on classrooms more directly. One still-percolating Democratic request calls for the creation of a “teachers’ bill of rights,” while a Republican-led proposal aims to assert teachers’ authority to “maintain a positive classroom learning environment” and codify school protocols for the treatment of disruptive students. 

Individual lawmakers are also pursuing bills to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments throughout public school buildings and to grant parents the explicit right to seek the deletion of their child’s educational data from OPI’s statewide K-12 data system, setting the stage for debates over the legal nuances of public education.

With a wide array of education proposals in the offing this session, Hedalen said she intends to play an active role in the Legislature’s debates and will have “no qualms” taking a firm stance on specific measures that may adversely impact students and educators — a marked contrast from the no-advocacy approach of her predecessor, Republican Elsie Arntzen. Based on her own policy priorities, Hedalen is poised to back any efforts to improve student safety, enhance student mental health support and bolster funding for school infrastructure. The tenor of conversations among state leaders over the past year and a half have Hedalen feeling optimistic about the Legislature’s appetite for supporting public education.

“We don’t expect to see as many education bills as last session, I think that was definitely a record,” Hedalen said. “People have done a lot of the work through the interim, so we’ll be able to make more movement and I think there’ll be less controversy this time.”

Much of that movement will likely happen through adjustments and additions to how Montana pays for the education of its youth. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have already expressed a shared interest in reexamining details of the state’s education funding formula, itself a deeply complex topic, and Montana School Boards Association Executive Director Lance Melton said several related proposals are taking shape to address local budget gaps driven by high inflation in recent years. 

Melton noted a growing acknowledgment among legislators of the important role elected school boards play in crafting timely school policies that reflect their individual communities, and said he hopes lawmakers this session continue to embrace policies that promote strategic local action over those that seek a fast statewide fix to a complex challenge.

“We have some fast fixes out there, people that come in and say, ‘I think that we need to have the following uniform rule across the whole state,’” Melton said. “We gently remind people in those circumstances that we continue to believe that the best governance impacting our communities is the governance that’s exercised where you can change it.”

Jim Elliott

The 1^st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, United States Volunteers, is not a well-known outfit in the history of the Civil War, but it fought alongside General Sherman and served as his escort in the march from Atlanta to the Sea. The regiment was raised in Huntsville, Alabama.

They were men of the northern Alabama hill country who were loyal to the Union and refused to be drafted into the Confederate forces that controlled the state. It was common for areas of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi to contain citizens of anti-Confederate, pro-Union sympathizers. Indeed, the citizens of today’s West Virginia live in a state that seceded from the Confederate state of Virginia.

I raise this issue to point out that in a political climate that seems to be unified there are always some individuals, groups of people, and even entire geographical areas that think independently from the majority. It is hard for the majority to tolerate this, let alone believe it. But it is something to be reckoned with when we come to Montana politics and especially with those Oregonians, Idahoans, Washingtonians, and yes, Californians who want to form their own state which is free from the liberally political coastal areas.

Here in Montana, we have, and have always had, enclaves of people with different political views who have had to live in political jurisdictions that they disagree with. It is tough, because while the laws are created and enforced by the majority, they have to be obeyed by everyone. This raises a point that I think is willfully ignored by majority governments and that is that the majority ought to be sensitive and accommodating, within reason, to the sensibilities of the minority among them.

Missoula County is a good place to examine. In the Legislature I represented the rural areas of western Missoula County, as well as Mineral and Sanders Counties. It seemed the further one got from downtown Missoula the less love there was for it, but at the same time, it was the trade center for the area, so, like it or not, we had to deal with it.

Now, even though we Montanans believe we are a people of free thinkers, often that means we really want everyone to be free to think exactly like we do, and so tolerance is not high on our list of ways to treat those with different viewpoints.

It has always seemed strange to me that one level of government wants to impose conformity on those governments beneath it, even though they are elected by the same people. So, what might be good for the people of the city of Missoula might not be welcomed by the entirety of Missoula County and there might be conflict between the city and county governments. And definitely, with Republican control of the state government, there is conflict of conservative state government with liberally controlled city governments. This leads to the state passing laws to restrict the abilities of the city government to enact laws that their local citizens want to see.

And once laws are passed that create conflict between those two forces, who decides? Why, the courts, of course, which are non-partisan. For now.

The current Republican idea is to bring the courts to rule in favor of the laws passed by the state government, which presently the courts often disagree with, and so rule against. By being able to put political party labels on judicial positions the majority government can rule the state as it sees fit and control the independence of the lesser governments. To this end, The Republican party in Montana is hoping to enact laws that can help elect courts that are more in tune with Republican thinking.

Probably the most important decision in the writing of the 1972 Montana Constitution was to have the delegates seated in alphabetical order rather than by political party. Who made the motion is lost to history, but the decision itself made history. It freed the delegates from the bonds of political pressure that happen when people are surrounded by others of the same political opinion. It allowed delegates to interact as individuals, rather than political robots. It allowed delegates to think and to contemplate ideas that had a diversity not found in party politics.

It would be good to return to that method today.

Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte rolled out an agenda of tax cuts and conservative social reforms Monday evening in his State of the State address.

The recently reelected Republican governor called for hundreds of millions in income tax cuts, along with a reduction in state property taxes on primary residences. He urged restrictions on child access to social media, including a cellphone ban in public schools.

Gianforte also used the speech to double down on criticisms of the Montana judiciary and tout efforts that seek to enforce strict sex and gender binaries in many aspects of public life — two salient political issues for the Montana GOP. 

The address came at the start of the 69th legislative session, and Gianforte needs the support of majority-Republican lawmakers to pass his priorities. Though the evening began with members of “The Nine” — a bipartisan group that led a week-long shutdown of Senate committee work — escorting Gianforte onto the House floor.

The escorts were selected by Senate President Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, who lost control of the Senate’s first week to nine lawmakers who balked at being assigned to a committee of questionable purpose. One of the nine, former Senate President Jason Ellsworth, R-Hamilton, quipped that he was selected “I assume, out of respect.”

Regier told the press last week that Gianforte hadn’t played a role in the committee dustup, which shut down bill progress as Republican leaders attempted to work through reassignments. 

The governor led with tax cuts but pivoted quickly to his proposed budget, which combines tax cuts with investments in public safety, teacher pay and housing infrastructure.

Gianforte discussed several of his spending pitches during the hour-long address, including a $100 million ask to provide low-interest loans to help pay for sewer lines and other infrastructure. Gianforte said the money would support new urban housing, expanding an effort he championed during the 2023 Legislature.

The income tax cut Gianforte proposed would extend his prior income tax reductions by lowering the state’s top-bracket rate from 5.9% to 4.9% and modestly expand a tax credit benefiting lower-income working families. According to the Legislative Fiscal Division, the top-bracket rate cut would reduce state tax collections by about $350 million a year and the tax credit for lower-wage earners would reduce their taxes by about $20 million a year.

The governor also asked lawmakers to fast-track his flagship “homestead” property tax proposal, which would increase taxes on second homes in order to lower tax bills on primary homes owned or rented by Montanans. Passing that proposal by mid-February, Gianforte said, would give state tax officials the ability to implement it this year instead of next.

Gianforte said the homestead proposal would reduce homeowner taxes by about 15%. MTFP estimated previously that the tax bill for the state’s median residential property rose by 21% between 2022 and 2023. 

​​“I don’t believe, for example, that a Californian who drops into Montana to ski once in a while near their Montana mansion should get a property tax cut. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to Montanans who own their homes and live here and who invest their lives in their communities,” Gianforte said.

While the state is again heading into a legislative session with a sizable surplus, Gianforte didn’t call Monday for tax rebates along the lines of the income and property tax rebates he and Republican legislators authorized in 2023.

The governor also avoided several significant policy issues during the wide-ranging speech, including abortion, the reauthorization of Medicaid expansion and child care — none of which received specific mention. The governor also did not address state relations with sovereign tribal nations.

MORE MONEY FOR TEACHER PAY, SCHOLARSHIPS

Public education netted Gianforte his first standing ovation of the night, nearly half an hour into his address, as he singled out the $100 million proposed in his budget to raise teacher pay. The money targets low wages, the most-cited challenge to recruiting and retaining educators across the state. Gianforte’s plan would buttress an effort by several Republican lawmakers to embed pay increases directly into Montana’s public school funding formula. 

“As a son and father of teachers, I’m well aware that teaching is one of the most noble professions,” Gianforte said. “For too long, though, Montana teachers, especially those just beginning their careers, have not been compensated properly for their work.”

In addition to heightened funding for teacher pay, Gianforte announced his intention to increase state support for STEM and trades-based education as well as a proposed $6 million boost to the Big Sky Scholarship Program, a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for private donations supporting public school programs and private school scholarships. 

The governor also reiterated a commitment to “creating a distraction-free learning environment” for students by banning or restricting smartphones in schools. Gianforte’s budget includes $1 million to fund state grants incentivizing local districts to adopt such policies. Hellgate Elementary School District Superintendent Molly Blakely, who has imposed a cellphone-free policy, was a governor’s guest.

Gianforte proposed requiring parental consent for child use of social media and a ban on companies selling data about children using social media. He also called on legislators to empower the state government to investigate companies that violate the law. 

“We should require default privacy settings for minors on social media,” Gianforte said. “We should have a curfew, a blackout, on social media overnight for kids. Kids need more rest. Not more reels on Instagram. They need more sleep. Not more Snapchat.” 

COURT CRITICISMS AND GENDER LAWS

Gianforte spent a portion of his remarks focusing on Republican losses before Montana judges on laws related to transgender Montanans. 

The governor chastised state courts for alleged liberal bias and credited “extreme-left, dark-money groups who devise clever names to hide their intent” with electing sympathetic judges. Montana’s two newly elected state Supreme Court justices sat beneath Gianforte as he spoke, alongside other members of the bench.

Gianforte backed partisan judicial races, a major change from current nonpartisan elections. The Legislature will consider that proposal in the coming days. Newly elected Chief Justice Cory Swanson declined to comment about the governor’s remarks.

Democrats remained seated during many of the governor’s comments about sex and gender laws, while their Republican colleagues rewarded Gianforte with several standing ovations. One member of the minority party who was not present in the chamber was Rep. Zooey Zephyr, D-Missoula, a transgender lawmaker and outspoken advocate for the LGTBQ+ community.

“The Governor used his speech to repeatedly attack trans Montanans & push for further restrictions on our ability to exist in public,” Zephyr wrote in a later comment on social media. “These continued unconstitutional attacks have no place in Montana.”

‘ALL-OF-THE-ABOVE’ ENERGY AND INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVES

Gianforte also touched on energy production and consumer energy bills, using the address as an opportunity to draw a comparison between his vision for the United States’ energy future and soon-to-be-former President Joe Biden’s.

“The heavy hand of the federal government has thwarted energy development. We need affordable, reliable power, and we need the federal government’s support, not obstruction. We need to unleash Montana and America’s all-of-the-above energy production,” Gianforte said, going on to announce his Unleashing Energy Task Force, which he said would build on the Legislature’s energy-related work.

Over the past four years, Gianforte has frequently criticized the Biden administration for its focus on limiting emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases. In late November, Gianforte issued a statement denouncing the Bureau of Land Management’s moratorium on new coal leases in the Powder River Basin, which holds the country’s largest recoverable coal reserves. Within two weeks, Wyoming and Montana sued the BLM over the moratorium.

During his tenure as governor, Gianforte has supported a variety of energy companies and projects, including the Colstrip power plant and the coal mine that fuels it, a nearly $1 billion eastern Montana wind farm, a new high-voltage transmission line, and a biofuel refinery that Montana Renewables, a subsidiary of Calumet, opened in Great Falls in 2021. 

Gianforte did not use the word “climate” in his address Monday, but he did mention funding goals geared toward making the state more resilient to natural disasters, such as the siphon failures that last June left northern Montana communities dependent on the St. Mary River for drinking water and irrigation in a lurch.

Gianforte highlighted two items in his budget oriented toward such infrastructure: a $100 million one-time allocation for state projects “that reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from natural disasters like aging levees and canals that might fail,” and a $10 million annual boost in bridge repairs.

REBUTTALS FROM DEMOCRATS, FREEDOM CAUCUS

Democrats highlighted a number of shared political priorities with Gianforte, including affordable housing and education. The minority party balked at Gianforte’s call for partisan judicial races. 

“Democrats will be working hard to make Montana fair by bringing tax [relief] and renewing Medicaid,” Sen. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, said in his address.

Morigeau identified the well-being of Native American communities in Montana as one of the Democratic caucus’ focus areas. In an interview after the address, Morigeau also cast doubt on Gianforte’s rosy picture of Montana’s financial future.

“People can say, ‘we’re going to reduce taxes,’ but how much is that for you, how much is that for big corporations and how much of that is that for working Montanans?”

Gianforte’s speech received mixed reactions from the conservative Montana Freedom Caucus, a mix of hyper-conservative Republican lawmakers from the House and Senate, some of whom did not attend the governor’s remarks. 

In a press conference after the speech, caucus chair and Rep. Jerry Schillinger, R-Circle, said the group is prioritizing property tax reductions, a limited state budget, election and border security and judicial reform. He also advocated for ending Medicaid expansion and curtailing abortion. 

The group said it appreciated Gianforte’s calls for tighter laws regulating the judiciary and could see some places where their members’ proposals for property tax reductions could live alongside the governor’s homestead exemption.

“Let’s pass them both,” said Sen. Carl Glimm, R-Kila. “Why not?”