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Glacier County approves school budget reports and signs FY2025–26 mill levies
Summary
Commissioners accepted multiple school district budget reports and approved county mill levies for fiscal year 2025–26 by voice vote; staff will file signed documents with the state. Board members also questioned why mill rates differ among small districts and asked staff to follow up with OPI.
At the Oct. 20 Glacier County meeting, the board moved to accept fiscal-year 2025–26 budget reports for county school districts (Glacier County School District No. 9; Browning School District No. 15; School District No. 50, East Glacier; and School District No. 64, Mountain View) and approved the Glacier County mill levies for FY2025–26. An unidentified commissioner (recorded in the transcript as S1) made the motion and a second commissioner (S2) seconded; the board approved the motion by voice vote.
A county staff member presented the budget packets and said the documents are countywide and require signatures for state filing. The staff member told commissioners the state accepts the budgets and noted that, in a hypothetical situation where county levy revenue was insufficient, the county could reevaluate funding levels. "In a hypothetical situation where the county said, 'wait, no, we don't have enough money to support this number of mills in the budgets,' you might have to reevaluate," the staff member said.
Commissioners raised questions about how mills are calculated and why smaller districts show higher mill rates. One commissioner said they had called the Office of Public Instruction and were told the distribution had historical roots. County staff explained that mill rates depend on how many people pay taxes in a district and that sparsely populated districts can show high mill figures even if total revenue is small.
The board signed the necessary pages for state filing during the meeting. The chair opened public comment on the agenda items; no public callers were recorded in the transcript. The board scheduled its next meeting for Oct. 23, 2025, and adjourned at 9:42 a.m.
