{"id":16581,"date":"2017-03-09T17:51:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T00:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=16581"},"modified":"2017-03-09T17:51:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T00:51:36","slug":"legislative-update-thursday-march-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/03\/legislative-update-thursday-march-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislative Update: Thursday, March 9"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Eric\"<\/a>

Eric Feaver<\/p><\/div>\n

Bill would refund taxpayers if enrollment projections miss the mark<\/h4>\n

By Freddy Monares<\/h6>\n

When schools overestimate the number of students in their district, Montana property taxpayers end up eating that cost.<\/p>\n

House Bill 390<\/a> would return the excess money collected back to taxpayers the following year. Eric Feaver, president of the MEA-MFT teachers union, spoke in favor of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it says about overestimating is important, and we certainly don\u2019t want people in any way to think that school districts are trying to scam the system and this addresses that,\u201d Feaver said.<\/p>\n

The bill also aims to change a $1 million appropriation for school technology grants to be used as matching funds for a federal program to provide schools with internet access. Bob Vogel, the lobbyist for the Montana School Boards Association, likes that part of the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to leverage those dollars into probably up to $20 million in broadband access,\u201d Vogel said.<\/p>\n

The House Education Committee<\/a> will hear first testimony on the bill Friday.<\/p>\n

Freddy Monares is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bullock works about funding for essential services<\/h4>\n
By Cole Grant<\/h6>\n

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock says his biggest concern with the Legislature\u2019s proposed budget is the lack of funding for essential services.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s everything from senior and long-term care, to how they\u2019re funding higher education, to what had been done with child protective services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The state is facing a tight budget this session. In the House Appropriations Committee\u2014where Republicans are in the majority, as they are in the House and Senate\u2014both parties are trying to find a middle ground.<\/p>\n

Thursday morning, the committee took action on amendments to aspects of House Bill 2<\/a>, the main budget bill.<\/p>\n

Rep. Brad Tschida, R-Missoula, said he realizes that some programs, like a camp for at-risk youth, “do need and deserve money, but I think at this point and time we have to see where the budget comes in before we can go ahead and honor a commitment of this nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee will continue hearing amendments on the bill through Friday.<\/p>\n

Cole Grant is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill would refund taxpayers if enrollment projections miss the mark By Freddy Monares When schools overestimate the number of students in their district, Montana property taxpayers end up eating that cost. House Bill 390 would return the excess money collected back to taxpayers the following year. Eric Feaver, president of the MEA-MFT teachers union, spoke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":16582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1122],"class_list":["post-16581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-montana-legislature","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16584,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16581\/revisions\/16584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}