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Committee hears support for letting Community Choice Schools Commission seek federal and public grants
Summary
SB 177 would allow the Community Choice Schools Commission to seek public and private funds, enabling Montana founders to compete for federal charter school program grants and centralize grant administration; proponents said this could yield $10–$15 million for initial founding schools.
Senator Sue Vinton opened the SB 177 hearing by telling the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee that the bill is a technical change to authorize the Community Choice Schools Commission to seek and receive public funding consistent with the commission’s purposes. Proponents said the change would let the commission apply for federal Charter School Program (CSP) grants and subgrant to founders during school planning and startup.
Trish Schreiber, chair of the commission, described the bill as a technical cleanup and said allowing the commission to accept public funds would enable it to apply for and administer CSP awards so prospective schools would not have to individually compete for startup funds. Chip Lindenlaub and other proponents cited recent national grant rounds and said states with strong charter laws secured multi‑million dollar awards; proponents argued Montana should be eligible to compete.
Committee members asked about likely funding amounts. Trish Schreiber said CSP grants from Washington totaled about $440 million per year and suggested Montana proponents might request $10–$15 million to support several founding schools, with $3–5 million cited as a typical per-school start-up figure.
Proponents said allowing the commission to accept grants would not redirect existing K–12 appropriation streams: sponsor and proponents repeatedly stressed the change is intended to access federal and private grant funds, not to use state per‑pupil entitlements. The hearing closed with the sponsor asking for a due pass; no committee vote is recorded in the transcript.
