A Montana legislative committee took up a preliminary school safety funding proposal this week, prompted in part by testimony from a school superintendent who credited a state tipline with saving a student’s life last spring.
Tipline Intervention Drives Testimony
Molly Blakely, superintendent of the Hellgate Elementary School District, told lawmakers that in spring 2026 her district received a call from the Montana Safe Schools Center tipline flagging a recently graduated eighth-grader believed to be in crisis. The district alerted police, who stepped in before the situation escalated.
“I firmly believe that we saved that child’s life,” Blakely said. “This is exactly why Montana Safe Schools and the Montana Safe Schools tipline are not optional services; they’re essential, and quite frankly should be mandatory.”
Survey Finds Widespread Gaps
The Montana Safe Schools Center recently completed a statewide survey of district safety practices. The results indicated that a significant number of Montana schools are not following established best practices for preventing or responding to threats — including active shooters and fires.
Nancy Berg, the center’s director, told the committee that Montana lags behind peer states in dedicated school safety funding. Berg argued that effective safety is not purely reactive. “Keeping students safe requires more than just responding to a crisis,” she said. “It requires creating conditions that prevent crises from occurring in the first place.”
What the Proposed Bill Would Do
The preliminary bill draft under review would direct state funding to the Montana Safe Schools Center for two main purposes: building a statewide database tracking school safety measures across districts, and expanding the center’s capacity to work directly with individual schools on prevention and preparedness.
Lawmakers on the interim committee are considering this proposal alongside other potential school safety approaches. The bill remains a draft and it is not yet clear whether it will advance to a full legislative proposal ahead of the January session.
What’s Next
Montana’s regular legislative session is scheduled to convene in January 2027. Any bill emerging from interim committee work this year would need to be formally introduced at that point. The current review process is part of the off-year interim work that shapes the legislative agenda ahead of the next session.
The committee’s consideration of school safety funding comes as Montana grapples with several budget pressures heading into the next session. The state recently withheld a planned Medicaid provider pay increase to address a $7 million budget gap, a sign that funding competition across state priorities is already underway. Whether school safety proposals receive dedicated appropriations will likely depend on how lawmakers prioritize competing demands when the Legislature convenes.
