Windy Boy, Bachmeier discuss bills coming up in legislature

Less than a week into the 65th Montana Legislative Session, two Hill County lawmakers are already working to move forward with several bills.

State Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, said a bill he is sponsoring to extend the life of the Language Immersion program funded in the last two legislative sessions will come before the House Education Committee today for a hearing.

The program is set to expire at the end of fiscal year 2017, but Windy Boy’s bill would extend it to the end of FY 2019.

The legislation, passed in 2015, provides state money to school districts on or next to one of Montana’s seven Indian reservations or in any district where the American Indian population is 10 percent or greater, who choose to implement language immersion programs.

Windy Boy said that when the initial legislation was brought up in 2013 he hoped each of Montana’s reservations would have at least one tribal immersion program. However, due in part to lack of funding, he said, only the Crow and Blackfeet tribes have such programs receiving the funding.

As chair of the State Tribal Interim Relations Committee, Windy Boy said, he heard from many school administrators and boards that were interested in the program, but they thought a requirement that an immersion program spend a minimum of 50 percent of its time providing instruction in a Native language was too much.

Windy Boy said he recommended legislation sponsored by state Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-Helena, that would allow programs to spend 30 percent of their time providing instruction in Indian language the first year, 40 percent the second year and 50 percent the third year and in subsequent year.

That legislation will also be up for a hearing today.

Other additions to existing language immersion programs Windy Boy said he is championing include allowing sign language and song to be allowed as a means for instruction. He is also recommending a bill sponsored by state Rep. Ed Greef, R-Florence, that would allow immersion programs to use state funds for federal matching fund requirements for grants.

Two other bills sponsored by Windy Boy each include $500,000 for suicide prevention programs for American Indian Veterans groups.

Not to be outdone by veteran lawmaker Windy Boy, state. Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, said Wednesday that there are at least five bills he is looking to carry this session.

One bill pertains to how tuition waivers are funded. Bachmeier said right now tuition waivers for the schools in the Montana University System are paid for by the university system by students who pay tuition.

Bachmeier’s bill would create a tuition waiver reimbursement account for which, starting at the beginning of this fiscal year, the state treasurer would take money from the general account equal to the amount in tuition waivers that were given the year before. That money would be used to reimburse members of the Montana University System to pay them back for the costs associated with those tuition waivers.

The freshman lawmaker is looking to carry a bill that puts in place uniform standard of code to make it easier for men and women in the Montana National Guard Reserves to transfer into the active military.  

Other bills Bachmeier hopes to carry are updates to insurance requirements that the state auditor’s office should put in place and another that would eliminate the vertebrate pest management control advisory council. The council which Bachmeier said is no longer used was put in place to provide advice to the Montana Department of Agriculture on the management of pests that farmers and ranchers deal with.