Montana News

Montana’s Office of Public Instruction is unsure if its new draft plan to raise student achievement will comply with federal law. State education leaders are required to submit a plan to the U.S. Department of Education in September, as part of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act , or ESSA, which is the federal replacement for No Child Left Behind.

An automatic state budget cut could pull tens of millions of dollars out of the state firefighting fund as early as Tuesday. During the legislative session earlier this year state lawmakers approved a bill that triggers budget cuts based on how much revenue is coming in.

Later today in Billings State Auditor Matt Rosendale is holding the first of two meetings to get public input on proposed health insurance prices for 2018 . The state has some regulatory authority over health plans sold to individuals and small groups, that’s about 114,000 people in Montana. That authority allows the state auditor to review, but not reject proposed prices by insurance companies.

A group of 25 college students from Iraq is visiting Missoula. They arrived on July 10, just as Iraqi forces were reclaiming the city of Mosul from Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The students are part of an exchange of Iraqi Young Leaders arranged by the U.S. State Department and the University of Montana with a focus on international peace building.

The federal government has activated a large military airtanker to assist with wildfire suppression efforts in the West. Ken Palmrose is a public information officer with the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. "Right now it’s going to be stationed at Fresno, California and it will probably be working there in California starting tomorrow," says Ken Palmrose, a public information officer with the Fire Center.

There are now more large wildfires burning in Montana than any other state. At least 18 large fires are consuming both forests and grasslands in eastern and western Montana. That’s according to the National Interagency Fire Center, which says, “critical fire weather conditions are expected across the northwestern U.S."

Governor Steve Bullock formally signed a slate of bills today aiming to address the state’s problem of overcrowded prisons.

Montana’s K-through-12 schools could face millions of dollars in cuts next month if state revenues don’t improve. The state Office of Public Instruction warned education groups and teachers’ unions about the possible hit to the agency’s budget during a meeting Thursday afternoon.

As the nation faces an epidemic of opioid drug abuse after a decade of aggressively prescribing narcotics , Montana doctors are becoming more cautious about giving painkillers to chronic pain patients. It’s changing some patients ability to get treatment and what is considered compassionate care for chronic pain.

As the state ramps up its efforts this year to screen boats for invasive species, some local groups have taken inspections into their own hands. The City of Whitefish and the Whitefish Lake Institute, for example, have been running two city-funded mandatory check stations since Memorial Day at the only public boat launches on Whitefish Lake. The Whitefish Lake Institute, a local nonprofit that monitors water quality on the lake, also runs a decontamination station.