Special session results

May 15, 2007, 12:30 a.m. The special session of the legislature adjourned. Here is the status on our key bills.

School funding final tally, post-special session:
In all, the legislature appropriated over $200 million in new money for Montana's public k-12 schools. Here are the details (pdf file)

SB 2 (Carol Williams) Funds k-12 public schools, with about $200 million in new ongoing ($114 million) and one-time-only ($86 million).

SB 2 also funds voluntary full-time kindergarten.

Status: SB 2 PASSED

HB 2 (Edith Clark) General appropriations act.

Status: HB 2 PASSED. Read news story.

In the Senate, Senator Jerry O'Neil (R-Columbia Falls) made one last attempt to amend out full-time kindergarten out of the bill. Fortunately his amendment failed.

The House did not adopt HB 2 without considerable debate and killing two bad attempts to amend the bill:

The bad amendments came from Constitutional-Republicans Rick Jore and Roger Koopman.

Rep. Jore offered an amendment to eliminate the $10 million full-time kindergarten start-up costs. Jore's amendment failed 39 YES - 61 NO.

Rep. Koopman offered an amendment to cut $1 million out of the at-risk student payment. His amendment failed 35 YES - 65 NO.

Regular session bills