by Nathan Boddy
David Bedey, Republican Representative for House District 86, made himself available to the valley’s school board trustees and superintendents on Wednesday, May 21 at the Victor School auditorium. Bedey’s district is the smallest of the four house districts in Ravalli County, encompassing a relatively small geographic area comprised mainly of the City of Hamilton and surrounding areas. Bedey attended the gathering in order to share his perspectives on the recently closed state legislative session with the valley’s educational leaders. Bedey had spent the morning speaking with Hamilton High School’s senior government class, and joked that he’d come dressed in his legislator costume in order to more properly embody the role.
Bedey, himself a Bitterroot Valley native and a graduate of Hamilton High School, served as a trustee to the school district for nine years before beginning his career in the state legislature.
Representative, David Bedey, spoke to a gathering of school board trustees and superintendents on Wednesday, May 21st. Photo by Nathan Boddy.
During his talk with trustees and superintendents, Bedey spoke about several bills that he thought were important from the past session in Helena. He began by mentioning the STARS Act, which he said was essentially developed to keep up with an inflation rate of approximately 10%.
“The centerpiece of the STARS Act is to provide funding to districts provided that they raise starting teacher pay to a certain point which is roughly $42,000,” he said. Bedey explained that a study of teacher compensation had been commissioned by the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, and its finding showed that starting teachers are the most ‘at risk’ when it comes to recruitment and retention. Those findings helped legislators determine the specific needs of the STARS Act.
“We felt that this was an important piece of legislation that was put through and that’s why we worked on it early, why we messaged early even before the session,” said Bedey. “We secured the governor’s support to the extent that he wrote it into his budget.”
He also mentioned an update to the School Equalization Property Tax Reduction Act, which shifts some of the financial burden of transportation from school districts to the state.
Bedey also sponsored House Bill 156, which was signed by Governor Gianforte on May 5th. The bill, which Bedey says was actually conceived to be part of the Governor’s Property Tax Force activity, will replace district-specific levies with countywide levies. He added that, in his opinion, the bill also, “addresses some of the angst that was caused by House Bill 203 from the 2023 session.” House Bill 203 made allowances for students to cross from one district to another, something that Bedey says had already been fairly common in Ravalli County. He said that, once rules are finalized by the Office of Public Instruction, House Bill 156 should prevent districts from having to go through a “tuition matchup” when faced with out-of-district students. He added that the new rules will advance choice in public schools, which he considers to be a good thing.
Bedey said that he wasn’t entirely happy with everything that happened during the session, but that legislation comes down to compromising. He then repeated something he’d told the high school students earlier in the day.
“The legislature is a place where arithmetic dominates. You don’t need higher mathematics. You don’t need calculus. It’s simple, it’s three numbers: 51, 26, and 1. It takes 51 votes to pass a bill in the House, 26 to pass one in the Senate, and one governor to sign it.”
During the interim session, Bedey will be participating in a bi-partisan commission of legislators and other members from the Board of Regents which is required to study school funding every 10 years. He said that he wasn’t particularly satisfied with the 2015 study, but has hopes for the cooperative work which should begin in June. Bedey said that he thinks the commission’s approach to its work should not simply look for a model of funding, but should instead begin with the questions, “what do we wish to achieve, what are our objectives?”
Bedey was asked about the makeup of certain elements within the legislature and and whether there are powers that want to break public education. Bedey responded, “no,” although he did add that, “there are people that are highly skeptical of public education. They equate public education with indoctrination.” He then assured the gathering that those individuals remain a minority.
The topic of homeschooling came up, to which Bedey responded that, although the number of homeschooled students has gone up in the valley, he feels as though the trend would plateau and not become a threat to the public school system.
“Most children are going to be educated in public schools and the better you make public schools, the more people will stick around,” said Bedey. “We’re going to do what we can to have the best programs we can have and we can do it. I think public education should have the confidence in itself to do it.”
In summarizing the legislative session, Bedey seemed pleased.
“I think we did great overall,” he said. “One of the reasons I think we did well is that we had quite a bit of fruitful collaboration between moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans. I’ve got friends of mine who would argue with that label. They would argue that we’re progressive Democrats and we’re conservative Republicans. Well, the term progressive and conservative to me are labels that no longer have any meaning whatsoever. They’re just used as a way of branding purposes.”