Missoula County on Thursday described the state's lawsuit against it involving school equalization mills as a “smoke screen” that has little to do with school funding and everything to do with padding the state's coffers.
The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered all 56 counties in Montana to submit responses during the next month to a request from the Montana Quality Education Coalition that the court require each county to levy the full 95 state education equalization mills as some counties try to levy less from their residents because of property tax increases.
Citing standing Montana law, Missoula County on Thursday joined other counties across the state in levying fewer mills than what the state believes it's entitled to through school equalization.
City Council member Gwen Jones writes, "We put more than a year of work into listening sessions and other forms of collaboration with contractors, labor unions, and other stakeholders, and it’s gratifying to see the community benefit as the resolution achieves the intended result."
A Montana District Court judge has put a temporary halt to the enactment of a new law that allows the state to create charter schools more independent from the existing education system.
The state’s schools may struggle to remove all but the most dangerous sources of lead, considering about half the schools that tested their water between July 2020 and February 2022 found high lead levels.
By the start of the 2024-25 school year, a pair of new laws call for new charter schools to be operating within the state – but one of those laws first faces a challenge in the courts.
Two weeks after the Montana State Library Commission voted to split from the American Library Association over concerns of its president's identity as a “Marxist lesbian,” Missoula County is urging it to reconsider.
Jim Elliott writes, "Democrats used to be the party of working people until suddenly they were the party of every special social group instead of working people, forgetting, I am sure, that the common thread that runs through every special social group is work."