Trego's Mountain Ear

Editor’s Note: This was originally published about a year ago (last March), but we’re publishing it again because the bill is coming due. We won’t know the amount until the school year is up and every school in the state has to figure out how much to bill other districts for, but permissive levy notices have gone out and tax payers are learning how this will impact their bill.

One of the ‘Things Our Government Has Been Up To’ is House Bill HB203, which passed into law. It’s marketed as a bill about school choice, although Montana was already a state that allowed for out of district enrollments.

One of the things it does, is that it makes it harder for schools to say no to out of district enrollment. “Perhaps the most compelling and direct impact of HB203 is that Montana public school districts will no longer have absolute discretion to deny applications for out-of-district attendance.” There are very limited circumstances in which the law will allow districts to reject out of district enrollment.

More choice for parents? Not here. Our local schools have already been accepting out of district enrollments when they’ve been able to do so and meet the needs of the students. Less choice for school boards? Definitely. And for taxpayers…?

The taxpayers of the district accepting students aren’t on the hook for funding those students (and really weren’t before, since the state distributes school funding based on enrollment anyway), but the donating school district can expect to contribute over a thousand dollars of tuition per leaving student.

Will this impact district taxes and levies? Probably, especially in smaller districts where budgets run tight.

Did it increase our choices for where to send our kids to school? No. Not here. Not for us. Did it turn our kids into dollar signs for other school districts? They already were, due to the state’s method of redistributing funds. But it’s increased the number that goes with the dollar sign.

What did our local senator and representative vote? Yea.