Committee hears bill to shift tax-based payments to serve isolated Big Sky students attending local schools

The Montana House Education Committee heard testimony on House Bill 846, a bill aimed at directing tax-based reconciliation payments when pupils living in one district cannot reasonably access their resident schools and instead attend a nearby nonresident district.

Sponsor and proponents described a narrow, largely geographic situation affecting families in the Big Sky area who live in Madison County but are closer to and attend schools in the Big Sky School District (which spans Gallatin and Madison counties). Lance Melton of the Montana School Boards Association, testifying for a coalition of advocates, said the bill addresses “a very unique situation” in which pupils living in a high-taxable-value jurisdiction attend schools in a lower-taxable-value district because distance or travel time makes the resident school unreachable by a standard bus route.

Proponents…