Report from Helena

Montana Legislative Education and Local Government Interim Committee Report:

Hello from Helena and the Education and Local Government Interim Committee. As your representative for HD12, I received a refresher on issues appearing on the horizon for the 2011 Montana Legislature. These interim committees created by the legislature roughly 10 years ago meet to preview legislative action and take testimony on requested topics. Requests made by this committee for legislation to be written does not necessarily mean the committee supports the ideas therein.

 In a series of hearings from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on June 10, this committee received information and made some requests for bill drafts on issues ranging from wildfires and subdivisions to local government school concerns on medical marijuana dispensing locations.

Testimony was received on the prohibition of possession and use on school grounds and busses (and definition of school grounds) and limitations on open use. Further testimony was received on the use of zoning to control this activity and the fact that so few counties in Montana have adopted zoning. This committee is further limited on the wide range of medical marijuana issues due to its scope of interest in education and local government.

Rules for creation of new community colleges were looked at. This is due to the disappointment in the Bitterroot two years ago when a group in Hamilton sought to create a new community college in that community.

An ongoing discussion of local government, school budget and Department of Revenue deadlines continued. Two bill drafts were discussed. One bill would grant the local governments and clerks one extra month. A second would grant three extra weeks and both would leave the Department of Revenue less time to get out its computation of taxes. A third option would be to leave the timelines without change.

The Office of Public Instruction requested permission to write seven bill drafts. The committee approved three: increasing compulsory attendance to age 18, an attempt to reduce dropouts, disallowing the transfer of left over transportation money into local school general budgets, and an elimination of rental fee of media  materials made obsolete by the Internet.

Informational presentations were given by the Montana Historical Society on historical site preservation, principally Bannack and Virginia City. The Montana Digital Academy was described by Director Bruce Messinger charged with implementing this on-line set of courses for Montana’s high school students. The academy will begin offering classes this fall and will not charge fees for the 2010-11 school year.

The committee set its last interim meeting for August 16-17 and requested two days in order to deal with the number of bill writing and information requests of the committee members.