Missoula County staff ask state to let three Bozeman hires count toward Big Sky Trust Fund closeout

At a Missoula County administrative meeting, staff reported a letter to the Montana Department of Commerce asking the agency to allow three employees hired in Bozeman to count toward closing a Big Sky Trust Fund contract for DJNA that ends in July.

Nicole Rush, a county staff member who joined the meeting to discuss the item, said the request is intended to help DJNA meet eligibility rules so the contract can be closed without forcing repayment. "This is a letter in the interest of closing out some of our remaining Big Sky Trust Fund contracts," Rush said. "We would allow them to consider new hires outside of Missoula County, but still within the state of Montana."

Rush said the program has been phased out and converted into a different state loan program. "This program actually has been phased out," she said. "It ran from 2007 until 2022. . . . For every employee that is hired [for the grant] the employer would get up to $5,000 per employee," and, she added, the last wage threshold for eligibility was about $24.56 an hour.

Staff and a meeting participant said the county has permitted similar out-of-county counting in prior contracts (Cognizant was named) and that the current request would apply to three Bozeman employees — "not a huge number," a participant said. A gallery questioner also asked whether DJNA would have to repay funds if the contract parameters were not met; Rush confirmed that repayment would be required in that case.

Separately, the meeting approved a brief consent agenda by voice vote after a committee member moved to approve it and another seconded. No formal roll-call vote or recorded abstentions were shown in the transcript.

The county will send the letter to the Department of Commerce to seek flexibility that staff said the department is open to considering; the DJNA contract is scheduled to end in July and staff will follow up as the state reviews the request.