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Missoula school board unanimously approves budget

Posted at 7:23 AM, Aug 21, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-22 09:16:36-04

MISSOULA – The Missoula County Board of Trustees unanimously passed the 2018-2019 budgets for the elementary and secondary school districts on Monday night.

MCPS Superintendent Mark Thane said they are experiencing increasing enrollments, and with that, increasing costs. Budgets went up slightly, but that doesn’t mean everyone will see an increase in their tax bill.

In the combined K-12 district — which covers most constituents in the district — there will be an increase of $3.98 annually on a property valued at $200,000. Meanwhile, for those living in the independent K-8 districts, taxes will fall about $5.51 annually.

Some state money is being restored this year after legislative action in 2017 cut grant money to the school district, according to Thane.

“We’ve worked diligently to be good stewards of the resources we have available, I think we have some good budgets developed. There will be some challenges, of course, to meet all needs with the budgets as they’ve been developed," Thane said.

"But we wanted to be conscious of the fact that we have significant debt service that we are paying off and want to make sure that we take into account the taxpayers that we serve,” Thane added.

MCPS staffing did increase slightly under the approved budget with just over five positions added to the elementary district, and one additional certified part-time worker added in the high school district.