School administrators have long said that education funding in Montana hasn’t kept pace with inflation. State lawmakers last week got a glimpse of how wide that gap became at the height of the pandemic.
Legislative staff presented an analysis of state education spending to members of the School Funding Interim Commission. Members are exploring potential changes to how Montana pays for public school.
The state’s share of school budgets has gone up in dollar amount over the last two decades. But due to inflation, the value of that money has stayed almost exactly the same as it was back in 2008. After prices rose dramatically starting in 2021, the state’s investment in schools was valued at roughly $100 million less than it was more than a decade earlier.
Lawmakers last year approved a big increase in funding designed to improve teacher pay and close that inflation gap. That is happening, but Democratic Rep. Luke Muszkiewicz of Helena said that law is looking more like a Band-Aid than an investment.
“If basically what we hoped was this huge step forward is really just getting us out of the hole that we dug ourselves, it’s not going to be enough to move the needle,” Muszkiewicz said.
Schools also got a big influx of emergency cash from the federal government during the pandemic. But that funding ran out, and legislative analysis shows inflation-adjusted school spending is lower than it was in 2008.
Lawmakers are now debating whether to boost their investment in schools above that decades-old status quo. The School Funding Interim Commission will decide whether to recommend changes later this summer.
