HELENA — Montana's public schools will receive $52.1 million in additional funding, intending to benefit programs and teacher salaries.
The Governor's Office of Budget and Program Planning requested House Bill 15, which republican representative David Bedey of Hamilton proposed.
"We gave the schools more money. In fact, we gave them historic amounts of money so that Mrs. Power, all the other teachers, and principals can get paid, and so we can have lights, and we can have good schools and good learning," said Gov. Greg Gianforte.
The law intends to apply inflationary adjustments to school funding formula components.
Millions of dollars will be added to the state's K-12 BASE aid funding, which is the "minimum general fund budget that all public-school districts must adopt in Montana," according to the Office of Public Instruction.
The money will benefit a variety of things in schools, including special education and Indian education for all programs, along with boosting teachers' salaries.
"It's been tough. Staff increases and pay alone eat up a pretty good portion of the budget," Dan Rispens, the East Helena Public Schools superintendent, said. "Trying to keep up with those negotiated increases for pay would have probably put us in a situation where we were going to have to cut some staff just to make ends meet."
According to the fiscal note of the bill, it "does not appropriate funds, it only defines the legislative intent to appropriate."
The law will go into effect on July 1st of this year.
