Big Sky Lede

Montana’s troubled teen industry is tucked into the wooded mountains of northwest Montana, where these programs treat youth with different behavioral health issues in the isolated landscape away from their homes and family and friends.

The industry has undergone a few sea changes in regulations over the past 16 years to better ensure the safety of these participants, but issues remain. 

Late last month bureau reporter Seaborn Larson learned about a suicide at a therapeutic boarding school for troubled girls outside of Thompson Falls, and we now know that state officials are investigating the death. 

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

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During the legislative session, a program that hasn’t ever really been in the spotlight before got a lot of attention. It’s the Comprehensive School and Community Treatment Program, also known as CSCT.

It’s a program that provides behavioral health treatment to students while they’re in school, during the school day. There’s been long-simmering funding problems for the program that finally came to a head over the last year. Lawmakers thought they created a fix for things this winter, but now it’s looking like that might not be the case.

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“Help wanted” signs have become ubiquitous in Montana at restaurants, stores and other businesses across economic sectors and up and down the income ladder over the past few months. As vaccines have become broadly available alongside the onset of summer, there’s been an acute labor shortage for many jobs. 

This week, Sam Wilson shares his reporting and the data he's found trying to understand Montana's workforce shortage.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For anyone that enjoys Montana’s waters or taps it for their livelihoods, trends into the early summer are a cause for concern.

The fabled Smith River has seen numerous record daily flows, essentially cutting a month from the floating season. The Ruby River is already in its second fishing closure for the year due to low flows. And temperature spikes in the lower Madison, Jefferson and multiple other rivers is quickly becoming a daily accounting of the impacts from drought poised to shape this summer.

In this episode of Big Sky Lede, Lee State Bureau natural resources reporter Tom Kuglin and producer Thom Bridge talk about the concerning situation on the waters, what it means for recreation and irrigation, and whether forecasts call for any relief in sight.

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This week, reporter Seaborn Larson tells us how Darigold canceled its 30-year contract with the Montana State Prison, forcing the state's prison work program, Montana Correctional Enterprises, to scale down its dairy operation from 350 head to about 70, enough to produce milk to self-sustain the Department of Correction's facilities around the state.

Then, Tom Kuglin talks about how the state of Montana is trading Holsteins for hens at Montana State Prison, hopeful that a new pheasant rearing and release program will help recruit hunters and provide inmates continued work opportunities. 

Welcome to the second season of Big Sky Lede, where our team brings you an examination of Montana’s new landscape with new laws, a new governor and a new republican dominance across all of state government.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New laws. New governor. New administration.

November 2020 had major implications for Montana. Voters put Republicans into every statewide office, the governor’s chair and in expanded margins in the Legislature.

For the last four months, the Montana State News Bureau documented the bills lawmakers passed that will mean dramatic changes for Montana. Now, we’re reporting on the execution of those new laws.

On this season of Big Sky Lede, we’ll dive into the new landscape.

The list of changes Montana’s about to go through is long:

And that’s just the start of a slew of new laws that’s facing the state.

Our team will explain all the changes Montana’s going through as a result of the legislative session.

We’ll track the litigation over some of the more contentious new laws. And we’ll also keep following the unprecedented GOP-led investigation into the judicial branch that’s left the state Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers at loggerheads

We’ll also have an eye on the new administration and how it puts its stamp on state government, from the policies and programs it advances to seeing if their new tax cuts are able to boost the state’s economy.

We’ll share our reporting on the stories that chronicle a changing Montana, from interview with the governing and the governed, our team’s breakdown of the details and insights that go beyond the headlines and more.

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The 67th session of the Montana Legislature ended last week as lawmakers put the final touches on the state budget and plans to spend about $2 billion in federal covid aid.

Our bureau was there to cover it all, and on this episode they’ll explain how it all wrapped up in the last few days.

There was a late scramble by some Republicans to amend previously voted down policy into remaining bills. There was also a last-ditch effort to change a bipartisan broked deal on cannabis implementation that hung up lawmakers for hours on the final day of the session.

The 80-day term saw major efforts to overhaul the state’s hunting, wildlife management and public lands access landscape. And long-time voting access rules changed with backing from a GOP-majority Legislature and backing from the Secretary of State.

To wrap up, the team shares their takeaways from a session unlike any other, and not only because it was held in a pandemic.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lawmakers came back to the Capitol on Tuesday after a brief shutdown because of COVID-19 and they wasted no time getting back into action. Reporter Seaborn Larson covered one of the most controversial bills of the session, one to block gender-affirming care for transgender minors. It died by a procedural move in the Senate on Tuesday. He’ll explain how that happened.

Seaborn also continued his coverage of the conflict between the legislative and judiciary branches of government. He’ll discuss what happened when all seven justices showed up unexpectedly at an investigatory hearing led by GOP lawmakers.

Reporter Sam Wilson also had some court coverage this week. Sam wrote about the second lawsuit filed so far to challenge legislation backed by the GOP and signed by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte.

Sam has closely tracked the two bills at the root of the challenge -- one that ended Montana’s same-day voter registration and another that tightened up what counts as a voter ID to register and vote. Sam will walk through who filed the lawsuit, what their concerns are and why these bills were priorities for the GOP this session.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week’s episode, we’re going to do things a little different. With a standoff brewing between the legislative branch and the judicial branch of government over legislation advocated for by the executive branch, reporter Seaborn Larson spends the entire show explaining what’s happening and what to expect next. Host Thom Bridge, deputy Tom Kuglin and bureau head Holly Michels also chime in.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Things are moving quickly as we get toward the end of the Legislative session, with rumors of wrapping up by the end of this month.

This week Holly Michels, head of the bureau, runs down the status of a major piece of the puzzle still missing — the implementation of a recreational marijauna program. Three bills cleared the House, what’s next for them?

Holly will also walk through reporting from Seaborn Larson on the legal challenge to the new law giving the governor direct appointment power when there’s a judicial vacancy. Emails obtained by the Montana State News Bureau show judges around the state weighed in on the bill, posing challenges for who can hear the case now.

And then deputy Tom Kuglin will explain what happened with a bill that would have originally let state agencies charge the public to comment on environmental impact statements and how the bill was dramatically changed to make it less controversial. Tom will also describe how the pandemic made the public lands rally that normally fills the state Capitol building a much different event this year and get into a bill Gov. Greg Gianforte just signed that will put Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks conservation easements under the Montana Land Board, reversing a policy that under his predecessor went to the state Supreme Court.

Then Holly wraps up with the possibility of the Legislature overriding Gianforte’s first veto, something that hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.

This podcast from the Montana State News Bureau is created in partnership across five newsrooms – the Billings Gazette, the Helena Independent Republic, the Missoulian, the Montana Standard and the Ravalli-Republic. You can support this podcast and our efforts by subscribing. Visit any of these newspapers’ websites, and click on the Become a Member button at the top of the home page. We appreciate your support of local journalism.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.