Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: Trego School

  • Blast from the Past: School Board Discusses Nepotism

    Blast from the Past: School Board Discusses Nepotism

    Sometimes, even old editions prove timely. Back about this time in 1988 Trego School board found itself discussing nepotism, specifically a school board member with a parent as a substitute cook.

    We mentioned nepotism briefly last week, when we discussed the upcoming school board election. The state laws on nepotism can be found here.

    Trego school board trustees discussed nepotism at their regular meeting February 10. The question of nepotism arose between school board trustee Sam Chaney, and substitute cook Donnajo Chaney, Sam’s mother. Sam Chaney received letters concerning nepotism from Bob Stockton, Office of Public Instruction and Cindy Middag, LC superintendent. The board took no action. The question of nepotism was again addressed concerning Sam Chaney and Trego election judge Goldie Calvert, his mother-in-law. The opinion of Jim Lear, attorney for the Legislative Council, Secretary of State’s office was that it is not legal for the Board of Trustees to appoint a relative to an election board because of the nepotism law. By doing so, the election could be challenged.

    Trego Mountain Ear, February 22, 1988

    Appointment of relative to office of trust or emolument unlawful — exceptions — publication of notice. (1) Except as provided in subsection (2), it is unlawful for a person or member of any board, bureau, or commission or employee at the head of a department of this state or any political subdivision of this state to appoint to any position of trust or emolument any person related or connected by consanguinity within the fourth degree or by affinity within the second degree.

    Montana Code Annotated 2-2-302

    Is it legal for a board member to appoint a relative as a substitute? Well, looking at the current laws, substitute teacher is a bit complicated, but if the time requirements (no more than 30 consecutive days) are met, it’s possible. What about substitutes for other roles? If the person was hired for that role before the relative joined the board, the situation is an exception. Additionally, while the language is a bit cluttered, 2(b) suggests that if certain conditions are met, it could be done legally.

    school district trustees if all the trustees, with the exception of any trustee who is related to the person being appointed and who must abstain from voting for the appointment, approve the appointment of a person related to a trustee;

    Montana Code Annotated 2-2-302. 2(b)

    There’s also an accompanying requirement for the position to be posted in the newspaper in advance of the appointment.

    As a side note, there are also rules governing election judges. Provided that the election judge isn’t a relative of a trustee running for reelection, having the relative of a school board trustee as the election judge wouldn’t be a problem. Of course, having one of your relatives judge the election your running in? That’s still a problem. Additionally, since election judges are paid, appointing your relatives is still bad form, even if it is an exception in Montana Code Annotated 2-2-302.

    But read the whole issue:

  • Trego School Trustees Positions

    Trego School (School District 53) has scheduled the regular school election for Tuesday, May 4, 2021.  Three trustee positions are up for election – a 1 year term, a 2 year term and a 3 year term.  It’s been a long time since a school election was held – for years, a single candidate for each board position has resulted in election by acclamation. Democracy does seem to work better when people actually run for office and elections actually occur. Folks interested in applying should contact the school clerk (email).

    Who can run? According to the school election handbook, published by Montana’s Office of Public Instruction (OPI):

    Any person qualified to vote in a district is eligible for the office of trustee. However, there are
    restrictions on who may hold office. A trustee may not be employed in any capacity by the
    trustee’s own school district (with the exception of officiating athletic competitions under the
    auspices of the Montana Officials Association). The trustee candidate may be related to a
    school or county employee

    No person convicted of a felony is eligible to hold office until final discharge from state supervision.

    -School Election handbook

    Trustee candidates may be related to a school employee, are there any special considerations if they are? Definitely! State nepotism laws absolutely apply to school boards, this means that a relative of a school employee that is also a board member will need to be well informed in order to avoid violating state law. Especially significant, since the penalty is potentially as hefty as $1000 fine and 6 months jail time.

    Can board members be related to one another? Sure, but like the previous case, some research is going to be necessary. In this case, the law to be careful of is the open meeting law. A meeting occurs whenever a quorum is present, and while a Quorum is three members of a five member board, a four member board has a quorum of two. While Trego School has a five member board, any one person stepping down could create a situation in which a husband and wife (or parent and child) couldn’t talk to one another without having an illegal meeting. So, is it possible to have relatives on the school board? Definitely. A good idea? Perhaps not.

    Why aren’t the terms all the same length? School board terms are staggered, so that only part of the board is up for election at any given time. If someone steps down from the board, midyear, the board appoints a replacement who serves until the next election. At that point, the person elected serves the rest of the term.

    Why haven’t there been elections recently? If there aren’t more candidates running than vacancies, the district isn’t required to have an election, instead, each candidate is appointed, by “acclamation”, since they’ve effectively ran unopposed for the position.

    What does being on a school board entail? Monthly meetings, at minimum. Boards can also hold special meetings, as needed, and board members can attend trainings.

  • Trego School Enrollment Grows- Also, Taxes

    Trego School Enrollment Grows- Also, Taxes

    The last school board meeting had the announcement of 3 more students this semester. That’s an increase from 23 students to 26, or a 13% increase in enrollment since Fall. School enrollment remains something to be watched closely, given the previous trend.

    Trego school’s enrollment graph from previous article

    The increased enrollment fit with reading the Budget Amendment Resolution

    the trustees have determined that an amendment to the state elementary fund budget in the amount of $25,584.05 is necessary . . . for the purpose of properly maintaining and supporting the district due to an increase in enrollment that was beyond what could reasonably have been anticipated at the time of the adoption of the budget for the current school fiscal year; and the anticipated source of financing the budget amendment expenditures shall be additional state assistance through direct state aid.”

    The second financial decision was to direct the clerk to establish a permissive levy for a building reserve fund.  The basis for the building reserve fund shared with the board members was:

    Permissive levy in Sub Fund 613 which includes:

    1. State Major Maintenance Aid (SMMA)
    SMMA amount is $15,000 + $100xprior year ANB (22) = $17,200


    2. Permissive Levy which can’t exceed 10.000 mills per fiscal year (a mill is 1/1000 of taxable value (TV/1000) Taxable valuation for the district in 2021 is $1,932,429. 1,932,429/1000 = $1931 mill x 10 = $19,310
    Tax impact on property: levied mills x property’s taxable value/1000
    Districts must first levy 10 mills and then can budget non-levy revenues or legal transfers (some restrictions apply)  Need to look into if we can transfer from a non budgeted fund (15) to building reserve.


    3. The projects must be listed and the priority for projects are listed on the Facility Condition Report under their deficiency categories. Those need addressed first. “

    A few translations: The state is willing to give aid that can be used for maintenance. The amount will be $15,000 plus the prior year’s enrollment (22) multiplied by $100. Thus, $15,000 + $2,200 = $17,200 that can be expected from the state.

    Permissive levy- this is a levy that does not require a vote by the public. In this instance, MCA 20-9-502 allows a school board to impose no more than a 10 mill level per fiscal year to go towards the building reserve. The school expects to get $19,310 out of this.

    What this actually means for your taxes? School district 53’s market value is assessed at $114,462,957. The taxable property value is set at $1,932,429 – a little less than 2% of the market value. Consequently, the math is 10 x taxable value/1000 – if your taxable value is $1000, the additional tax will be $10, if your taxable value is $10,000, the additional tax will be $100, and so on.

    Lastly, anything they use that money for has to be on the Facility Condition Inventory and has to be addressed in order of priority. The Facility Condition Inventory comes via state inspection, so what to fix and in what order isn’t determined by anyone local. The most current Facility Condition Inventory that was available is dated 1/24/2008 – so it appears to be high time to look at getting some maintenance done.

  • Family Field Trip at Trego School

    How do you go anywhere with an entire school full of children, invite their parents, and still manage to avoid exposing anyone to any new people/germs? The answer is elegant in its simplicity: Be the only ones there.

    Trego School’s students and their families will be attending The Polar Express, at the Majestic Theater in Eureka, which the school has rented for the purpose.

    Field trips are an important (if infrequent) part of the school experience, and help make things seem more normal in a year that feels from it. Inviting parents to join their children, to meet the teachers casually (instead of just at conferences), to meet their children’s friends, see what their children have been working on, that’s equally important. Parents will actually have two opportunities to do that this week- both on Tuesday for the Movie and on Thursday for (socially distanced) lunch, tea and cookies.

    Trego School is very much ending 2020 on a positive note for its students. This will be the last week of school before the New Year. Winter Break begins Monday December 21st, with School Resuming on January 4th of 2021.

    More information, both about the school’s calendar and future field trips can be found on the school’s website. Future field trips are expected to include ice fishing and ice skating.

  • Increased Enrollment led to additional funding for Trego School

    Increased Enrollment led to additional funding for Trego School

    Trego School will be receiving more funds from the state due to increased enrollment. While our school district has a relatively large tax base the local elementary school doesn’t see all of it. One set of our school taxes go to the state which then distributes them back based on enrollment. The intent is to equalize the amount of funding per student, so that more wealthy districts are not funded better than less wealthy ones.

    Anyway, with an increase in enrollment our local elementary school was delighted to see a little bit more of that funding returned to the district. The district expects over 25,000$ due to the increased enrollment.  

    The amount the district receives is based on a three year average, and given the trend in Trego’s enrollment, that number has been trending downward. 

    Each data point represents enrollment for the school year ending in the year listed, so the data point at 2020 represents enrollment for the 2019-2020 school year. The current enrollment is used for this (2020-2021) school year.

    Information about school enrollment is publicly available, but does require a bit of hunting. For school year’s ending 2014-2020 the data is available for each school in the state, organized by county. For year’s prior, it’s available via the GEMS system at OPI, but requires considerably more effort to fish out. The 2005-2006 data for the state can be found here.

    As you can see, the 2019-2020 enrollment is a shift from a steadily downward trend. With school enrollment currently up to 23 students in 2020-2021, the school board is optimistic about reversing the trend.  

  • Trego School to Resume In-Person Learning

    Trego School to Resume In-Person Learning

    This weekend, school board and staff attended a virtual meeting to determine the date to resume in-person learning. Most of the discussion focused on logistics. School will be resuming Wednesday (November 4th) when a majority of the staff are no longer required to quarantine. Details of the school’s Health and Safety plan can be found on the school’s website.

    Staff and school board were in full agreement that the best thing for the students is to have classes in person, and to reach that point as quickly as possible. Children benefit from routine and consistency, both of which are difficult to maintain with distance learning. While distance learning provides some semblance of the usual daily routine in the form of homework, studying, and interaction, it is a poor substitute.

    The meeting was upbeat and collaborative. School board and staff were united in the objective of getting kids back in the school, and talk swiftly turned from “How do we make this work?” to “How soon can we make this work?” and “What will it take to do it sooner?” Wednesday (November 4th) was the compromise between an urgent desire to get students and staff back into the school and the logistical challenges of scheduling and staffing.

    It’s a rare meeting that is full of positive questions. It is very easy to find reasons not to do things, reasons that things cannot work. It is a rare person who can ask “What will it take to get this done?” and “How can we make this work?”. It was a pleasure to witness a meeting characterized by that approach.