The cost of housing a prisoner varies from state to state due to factors like utility costs and officer salaries. In Montana it costs 64,000 a year. The Treasure State ranks 27th in the nation with an incarceration rate of 758 per 100,000 residents. The statistics for the cost comes from Visual Capitalist while the incarceration rate comes from Prison Policy.
The Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday in favor of a group of youth plaintiffs in the Held versus State of Montana case. The decision agrees with a lower court ruling that the state is violating their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment by not accounting for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts when granting permits under the Montana Environmental Policy Act. The court’s majority in a 6 to 1 order upheld the entirety of Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s ruling.
Bozeman voters supported a ban on single-use plastics in the November election by nearly a two-to-one margin but a Montana Supreme Court ruling released Wednesday put the measure in jeopardy. Another legal challenge to a state law prohibiting local governments from regulating single-use plastics is still active. The outcome of that case will decide whether Bozeman’s single-use plastics ban will move forward.
The U.S. Forest Service plans to swap rainbow trout with Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness by poisoning the waterways. Wednesday conservationists told Montana Magistrate Judge Kathleen L. DeSoto that overlooks the impact on the wilderness and violates federal wilderness laws.
Montana’s district court system needs about 12 more judges to keep up with caseload demands and it will request three new judges in the next legislative session. According to the National Center for State Courts court business may be backlogged in counties that lack judges meaning delayed proceedings and delayed rulings. Lawmakers will consider the branch’s request when it convenes in January.
Montanans can expect bigger paychecks in 2025 when the minimum wage bumps up from $10.30 to $10.55 an hour. Over a full year of full-time work that’s an extra $520. Montana adjusts its minimum wage every year based on a way of measuring how expensive life is getting named the Consumer Price Index. They crunch the numbers and round the wage to the nearest nickel.
Teachers in Corvallis will be seeing a 1.5% increase in base pay as well as a one-time payment of $610 after the school board approved the negotiated contract with the teachers union. The contract comes after the state found the district conducted an unfair labor practice in a previous contract negotiation with the union.
The waitlist for the Billings-operated affordable housing agency Homefront is at a 30-year high. This month the number of applications hit 8,096 for federal Section 8 subsidized housing. The organization also administers housing choice vouchers to help with rent through private landlords.
The until now long-dormant Ducks Unlimited Chapter in Butte will celebrate next month. A newly formed flock is describing it as its First Annual Winter Banquet. The event is scheduled for January 24th at the Hotel Finlen and will have a 1920s theme. The national nonprofit organization got its start in January 1937 during the Dust Bowl when North America’s drought-plagued waterfowl populations had plunged to unprecedented lows.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Elsie Arntzen has announced the 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey will now be available in a secure online format using school computers. The Office of Public Instruction offers it to middle and high school students and has since 1991.
