We also have tools to look up bills by title/number, and lawmakers by name. Plus a search function that will let you find your personal legislative districts/lawmakers by entering your address.

projects.montanafreepress.org/capitol-trac...

There are also pages for each of the Legislature's 150 reps and senators — including public contact info, committee assignments, the bills they're sponsoring, our analysis of their voting records and a listing of the MTFP news stories they've been named in.

There are pages in here for every bill introduced at the 2025 Legislature — with sponsor info, progression data and links to full text plus legal/fiscal analyses for bills that have them.

A running listing of all 2025 bills is here: projects.montanafreepress.org/capitol-trac...

Here’s how the tax math breaks down for fairly typical properties.

And then it gets even more complicated. Part of the state support comes through the Guaranteed Tax Base program, which gives extra help to districts that are 1) poor (in tax base terms) or 2) large (i.e., have a lot of students relative to the size of their tax base).

Once set, the budget is filled up. In essence, the state lends a helping hand from its coffers so districts don’t have to fill their bowl entirely with local property tax dollars. The specific process is... not simple.

The math used to calculate these fill lines is... complex, but the biggest factor is student enrollment. (That’s why schools with declining enrollments often end up facing budget crises.)

The Montana Legislature sets guidelines for how full each district needs to set its General Fund — the BASE line is a sort of minimum fill line that, in theory, is enough funding to provide an adequate education to the district’s students. Districts can also fill their up to a “MAX” fill line.

Montana school district budgets involve a bunch of different items, but the entrée, if you’ll forgive us a metaphor, is the General Fund. Its bowl is filled by a combination of state and local (i.e., property tax) dollars.