EPISODE DESCRIPTION

It’s week 16 of the 69th Legislature is kicking off week 15. Lawmakers have been talking about proposals to improve access to child care and teacher pay. This is ‘The Session’, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana statehouse.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Shaylee Ragar: It is Week 16 of the 69th legislature. Lawmakers have been talking about proposals to improve access to childcare and teacher pay. This is The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. I’m Shaylee Ragar with Montana Public Radio. 

Alex Sakariassen: I’m Alex Sakariassen with Montana Free Press.

Victoria Traxler: And I’m Victoria Traxler with Montana Public Radio.

Shaylee Ragar: Alex, people have heard you on our airwaves before but it’s your first time on The Session this session in 2025. How are you doing? 

Alex Sakariassen: I’m hanging in there. It’s been a busy one. 

Shaylee Ragar: Yep, I totally feel that. Victoria, it is your first time joining us. You cover policy impacts in rural Montana for MTPR and it’s kind of been hard to keep up with you.

You’ve been all over the place the last couple of months. Where have you been? 

Victoria Traxler:Yeah, March was a big one for me. I pretty much went corner to corner from Missoula to Glasgow. Got to see a lot of Central and Eastern Montana. I’ve been to Scobey, Wolf Point, Lewistown, Grass Range, Great Falls–and that was all this month. In February, it was Dillon, Whitehall and a few other more rural communities in Central and Western Montana. 

Shaylee Ragar: We are really excited to hear what you’ve been hearingfrom people on the ground. But before we dive in, I have an update on a topic I know lots of people are interested in and following, and that’s property tax relief.

We still don’t have a final answer on what that’s gonna be. Debate is ongoing. So let’s dive into the world of childcare. Before we get into policy, Victoria, can you set the scene for us? What is it like for parents out there looking for out of home care? 

Victoria Traxler: So, I can say with a lot of certainty that in pretty much every community that I visited, childcare has come up.

Both the balance of parents wanting to re-enter the workforce but not really feeling like they know how and not having enough childcare facilities to accommodate all of the kids in the state that are needing it and the parents that are wanting to reenter the workforce. I spoke with Katrina Lewis, a parent in Dillon who was seeking childcare.

“There are options, but so many of them are either prohibitively expensive or not quite aligned with the things, the experiences that we wanted for our children.”

Shaylee Ragar: When we think of childcare, we often first picture the family, the parent, the child. But the other side of this equation is the providers who are running a business and trying to provide this service.

How are they faring, Victoria? 

Victoria Traxler: Yeah, so I think similarly across the board providers are encountering the same issues when it comes to recruitment and retention, especially in rural communities. What I’ve heard is there are small pools of applicants, so there aren’t a lot of employees. Potentially to pick from as a whole.

And then again, the low wages that a lot of these small daycares can offer really isn’t enough for somebody who’s working full-time to be able to live on.

Shaylee Ragar: Right. And if there’s no one to take care of the kids, I’m sure that impacts their ability to have available slots and in turn the cycle continues.

Victoria, I know you’ve been keeping an eye on bills related to the Best Beginnings program. That’s a scholarship for lower income families to help pay for the cost of childcare tuition. There are also some aspects of the program that help providers to have more regular pay and inflow of revenue.

Remind us what those bills aim to do and where they’re at in the process. 

Victoria Traxler: So the two big bills on that this session were both brought by Missoula House Democratic Representative Jonathan Karlen. One of them was seeking to expand Best Beginnings to childcare workers so that childcare workers with children of their own could afford the cost of daycare tuition themselves.

Often, many of them don’t make high incomes while working in childcare. The other bill was revising Best Beginnings eligibility, and that was going to change the qualifying threshold from 185% of the federal poverty level to 85% of the state median. But both of those bills were killed. 

Shaylee Ragar: So those bills are on the table right now, they’re not advancing, but like we keep saying, nothing’s dead until sine die, until lawmakers leave Helena. And I also wanna note that this program has been around for decades. So while the bills tried to expand the program, the program still exists. The scholarships are still available going forward.

There are some new concepts that lawmakers are debating to address the lack of affordable childcare. Alex, I’m thinking of the bills that would create trusts, like a safe deposit box in the state’s budget to dedicate money to childcare in the future. Talk us through those ideas. 

Alex Sakariassen: Yes, so there are a couple trust bills still kicking around the legislature.

I think it’s best to start with Senator Laura Smith’s, a Democrat out of Helena, this one is focused specifically on childcare. It would direct about $150 million to setting up an endowment fund that would support early childhood efforts across the state. There’s been a lot of specific mention with this bill about using those funds for workforce development.

A lot of advocates talking about the fact that one in three childcare workers leave the profession every year. The proposal’s also expanding to include helping childcare businesses with startup costs or expansions or supporting quality improvements to early childhood instruction at the local level.

So there’s a lot packaged into this thing. It kind of treads similar ground as another trust proposal from Representative Llew Jones, a Republican out of Conrad, but Jones’ bill casts a much wider net. So that bill includes $15 million for childcare priorities, but also tackles a bunch of other stuff like bridge maintenance, water projects, pensions, and affordable housing loans.

So the price tag on that one is significantly larger, but it focuses on a lot more issues facing the state beyond just childcare. And so this is really gonna come down to lawmakers sitting down and having a discussion amongst themselves about which of these bills to move forward and how much money to direct towards certain things.

I know Jones’ it’s been called a Mega Trust Bill. It’s almost 50 pages long. It just has such a wide net. That they’ll really have to sit down and discuss how much money to direct towards childcare and if Jones’ Bill moves forward, how much to direct towards childcare versus all of these other causes that he’s really identified.

Shaylee Ragar: I do wanna speak to as well to the philosophical arguments we hear on the childcare issue. There was an argument that became super clear when Senator Smith’s trust was debated on the Senate floor. Smith was making an argument that the lack of affordable childcare is forcing parents out of the workforce to stay home with their kids.

And Republican Senator John Fuller of Kalispell asked Smith a question, 

“How many members of the workforce are unable to work because of the need for childcare?” 

“Over 66,000.” 

“Do you regard that as a bad thing?” 

“It’s interesting, right? This is the philosophical question, and I think it’s why it’s important that we’re discussing it. We may all have different views about where children thrive and where they can be, but for parents who, for both parents who have to work, sometimes it’s not an option.” 

So we do see this kind of opposition that’s not necessarily about the money. It’s not really about the size of the trust, it’s about how people think society should operate.

“It is not a bad thing if one of the parents stays home.” 

So I imagine we’ll continue to see this kind of opposition and debate as these trust bills continue to work their way through the process. But I wanna switch gears here because there is no requirement for the state to help pay for childcare. You know, they can leave the session without finalizing some of these concepts.

But the Montana Constitution does mandate that the state provides free and quality public education for all. ‘Quality’ is certainly a subjective term, but most lawmakers seem to agree. That includes ensuring that schools can hire and retain teachers. Alex, that effort has culminated in the STARS Act. What would that bill do?

Alex Sakariassen: Bottom line, STARS would direct $100 million dollars toward increasing starting teacher pay, which we all know from years of debate in the legislature is a huge driver in Montana’s teacher shortage. Right now, the STARS Act does this partly by doubling a slice of state funding that districts get, which is tied to how many licensed teachers they have.

STARS would also expand which employees count for those state payments, adding more state funding to the pot for say, specialists in Indigenous language and culture or teachers who are working under emergency authorizations from the state, which is a huge, huge thing, particularly in Eastern Montana where districts are really struggling to find teachers.

Shaylee Ragar: That is a lot, and I am so glad we have you here, Alex, to break down the details for us. What’s the path forward like for this bill? 

Alex Sakariassen: Yeah, so STARS has really had the wind at its back so far. This was included in Governor Greg Gianforte’s, proposed budget, $100 million dollars for teacher raises, and it’s been clearing committee and floor votes with really strong bipartisan support.

“The definition of insanity is to continue doing what you’re doing and expect a different outcome. This bill is the opposite of continuing to do what we were doing.” 

As far as Ed policy goes this session, this has been the biggest priority for Republicans, for Democrats, for public school advocates, for the Governor’s office, for state Superintendent Susie Hedalen.

There’s been a lot of testimony saying, we need to get this thing passed.

Shaylee Ragar: Alright, so lots for us to track and follow. Unfortunately, that’s all we have time for today. So to close us out, Alex, what was your favorite moment last week? 

Alex Sakariassen: Thursday’s Senate floor debate was really interesting. There were a ton of blast motions, which is when a lawmaker stands up and says a bill got killed in committee. Let’s vote to bring it from committee and revive it and debate it and vote on it here on the Senate floor. And there was just a ton of legislation that got blasted out of the Senate Education and Cultural Resources Committee that folks thought was dead. Just seeing the dynamics and the frustration among some lawmakers.

“I take offense to these motions that have wasted our time and I ask a rhetorical question, why do we even have committees if this is what’s gonna result?”

 Seeing all this happened was a really interesting insight into the dynamics of the legislature. 

Shaylee Ragar: Victoria, what was your favorite moment last week?

Victoria Traxler: Yeah, so I think my favorite moment from this past week was. Seeing the size of the crowds at the Bernie and AOC rally that was held at the University of Montana campus in Missoula. 

“How are we doing Missoula?” 

It was just really interesting to get a sense of the political atmosphere at the time and hear what people had to say in terms of how they’re feeling about changes at the federal level right now.

Shaylee Ragar: I will briefly say that my favorite moment last week was amid kind of what feels like a tense time at the legislature. People are antsy to get out of here. A lot of arguments are kind of coming to a head, but lawmakers still find ways to be silly and find fun in the process. Last week, several members of the House Democratic caucus dressed up as House Majority Leader Republican Steve Fitzpatrick from Great Falls.

They all kind of wore the same ties and then they printed out stickers of his face to put on their jackets, so everyone knew who they were. 

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess we have a few majority leaders here today.” 

They still find ways to have fun.

This has been The Session, a look at the policy and politics inside the Montana State House. Thanks so much for joining. 

Alex Sakariassen: Thanks Shaylee. 

Victoria Traxler: Thanks so much for having me.

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