School-funding bill has ample support in House

By Mike Dennison, Helena Independent Record

A bill to increase state funding for public schools by 3 percent in each of the next two years won solid endorsement from the Montana House Tuesday morning, although the final legislative word on school funding may be weeks away.

Still, the 82-18 vote in favor of the $48 million bill is a far cry from the controversy that usually stalks school-funding issues before the Legislature.

“All it does is pretty much maintain what we have,” MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver said shortly before the vote. “It’s a status-quo funding bill.” MEA-MFT is the union that represents schoolteachers and other school workers in the state.

Feaver and the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Dan Villa, D-Anaconda, also noted that money from the federal economic-stimulus bill should figure into the school-funding picture.

Money from the federal bill is expected to help pay for millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects at school districts around the state, helping to defray costs and make state and local funding go a little further the next two years.

After Tuesday’s vote, the bill was sent to the House Appropriations Committee, which next month will act on the measure along with the session’s main spending bills.
Villa’s House Bill 15 increases the state share of school funding by 3 percent this coming school year and another 3 percent in the school year starting in 2010.

The money is distributed on a per-school and per-student basis, and accounts for about half of the money for public schools in Montana. The other half comes from local property taxes and federal funds.

Rep. Wanda Grinde, D-Billings, who chairs the House Education Committee, said during floor debate that HB15 doesn’t provide everything that schools need, but that it does represent a good-faith effort by the Legislature to keep up its constitutional duty to fund schools.

“The current funding formula is not perfect; House Bill 15 is not perfect,” she said. “But I need not remind members of this body that we are not in perfect economic times. Putting dollars into school is one of the best investments we can make with our limited resources.”

Money in the bill is in Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s proposed state budget for the next two years and is supported by the Schweitzer administration.

House Republicans briefly discussed the bill in a meeting before the floor vote Tuesday morning, noting it’s just one step in the budgeting process, and that the school-funding amounts or methods can be changed as the Legislature deliberates over the next two months.

Republicans had tried in committee to amend the bill to route more money to smaller, rural school districts, but declined Tuesday to attempt to amend the bill on the floor.