Trego's Mountain Ear

First, an explanation: What is the school transportation fund used for?

While we could go read through MT Code Annotated, the faster way to find this information is the school accounting manual (link to pdf download). Since that’s over 400 pages- I’m going to provide the relevant excerpt.

TRANSPORTATION FUND – Authorized by Section 20-10-143, MCA, for the purpose of financing the maintenance and operation of district owned school buses, contracts with private carriers for school bus service, individual transportation contracts, and any amount necessary for the purchase, rental, or insurance of yellow school buses or operation of the transportation program. The fund may be used only to support costs of
home-to-school transportation.

So, in brief: The school transportation is only for transporting students between home and school. It can pay for the fuel, the insurance, the maintenance, and the bus driver.

We’ve been comparing local elementary districts, and we’ll continue to do so. If you’ve been downloading the school budgets, you’ll find these about 8 pages into the files.

Transportation Funding for 24/25 School Year

Funding Source	Trego	Fortine	Olney-Bissell
County Reimbursement	$12,353.21	$15,378.66	$27,017.92
State Reimbursement	$18,311.04	$15,378.66	$27,017.92
District Levy	0.0	$69,242.68	$158,308.00
Total:	$40,000	$100,000	$212,343.85

First obvious question: Why are the reimbursement rates not the same for Trego? Because Trego was able to offset them by lowering the budget. It probably didn’t lower your personal taxes all that much, since that savings was distributed across the county, but it had some impact.

Next, since it’s fairly obvious that Trego, with no local levy, is a bit of an anomaly, we’ll look at Trego Elementary over time.

Funding Source	21/22	22/23	23/24	24/25
County	$17,873.06	$17,960.04	$18,311.04	$12,353.21
State	$17,873.07	$17,960.04	$18,311.04	$18,311.04
District	$13,253.87	$13,079.92	$5,657.35	$0.0
Total:	$49,000.00	$49,000.00	$49,000.00	$40,000.00

Trego’s evidently dropped an already small levy over the past two years. The reimbursement received from the county is disproportionately large, when compared to the other two schools. This doesn’t necessarily mean something’s been calculated/reported incorrectly, but it raises the possibility and suggests a closer look at how that reimbursement is calculated is probably merited.

As a component of the whole transportation budget, Fortine receives 30% from the state/county. Olney-Bissell? 25% And for Trego?

Percent of Transportation Budget Coming From State/County Reimbursement by Year for Trego Elementary

Year	21/22	22/23	23/24	24/25
Percentage	72.95	73.30	88.45	100

Weirdly high, even several years ago. Nice for the local tax payer, but odd enough to warrant a closer look. An additional puzzle: Is it common for school districts to have the same transportation budget from year to year? I don’t know- but we can certainly take a closer look at Fortine and Olney-Bissell. More on transportation next week!

A reminder: We’re looking more closely at transportation, because transportation is the major levy difference between Trego Elementary and its two adjacent elementary districts.