By Jack Reaney SENIOR EDITOR
In the May 6 mail-in election, registered voters will decide on a proposed general fund levy for Big Sky School District to raise additional funds for teacher housing initiatives.
Unlike similar ballot initiatives under the Livable Big Sky campaign, the BSSD levy would raise property taxes—although Superintendent Dr. Dustin Shipman notes it’s a small increase. The additional $300,000 generated annually would be used to construct on-campus housing, and fund other housing initiatives for school district staff.
“It’s always a challenge for the trustees to make the decision to increase taxes,” he told EBS in a recent interview. “At the end of the day, it’s really minimal. And the housing, and housing stressors—housing stressors cause stress for the people that we depend on to execute the mission of the school… Anything the voters can do to help that, we appreciate that as a district.”
Shipman answered questions on a panel at an April 1 voter education event, Ballots and Brews with Explore Big Sky.
The full event, including presentations for each ballot initiative, can be viewed on YouTube.
Explore Big Sky: What are the biggest challenges you’re finding in educating voters for this upcoming local election?
Dustin Shipman: I mean, I think we’re probably at slightly less of a challenge than my colleagues here onstage. Ours is really straightforward, and most people understand how schools are funded, and how school levies work in communities. And the ballot language really outlines it. And we also have direct access to all our parents, which is a big piece of the Big Sky community.
EBS: You showed us the cabins that you guys are proposing to build. I want to learn more about the existing on-campus housing… Can you tell us how that came together and what have the impacts been?
DS: Those have been in full occupancy either by individual teachers, families, or employees, or teachers living together. And that was a significant partnership with Habitat for Humanity, Big Sky Resort Area [District] and our local voters… The Big Sky voters approved, I think it was a $750,000 levy, and BSRAD gave Habitat for Humanity $750,000 for that project as well.
EBS: And overall, I think, they’ve been full occupancy since they opened, right? And what feedback do you hear from teachers?
DS: We hear really good feedback from teachers. I mean, it’s reasonably priced, it’s close to school, they’re nice units. And the trustees did a really good job, when we built those, of putting [rent] on a sliding scale, so everybody can afford to live there on what they earn.
EBS: We all know that housing is a challenge in Big Sky, could you share just a bit on how it specifically impacts education here?
DS: Well, I think, not just does [housing] give us the ability to recruit and retain teachers, but we see models all over the state of housing that communities have built for their teachers… We’ve always talked about those places—they have housing to make their community more attractable for educators. We really want to make the community more livable for our educators.
And at the end of the day, the more livable, the more comfortable your teacher is, the better off your students are gonna be. So, you know, I’ve had teachers sitting across my desk, [saying] that their condo is going up for sale and they don’t have any place to move, and they gotta be out in 30 days. That’s a stressful situation, and that’s certainly projected into everything you do in your life.
EBS (audience question): Where are the six cabins going to be located on the school, and why wasn’t the current school housing built double storied?
DS: I’ll take the second part of that first. That was the first foray that the district had ever had into the employee housing realm. And with such a valuable partner, as Habitat [for Humanity] that kind of drove the whole thing, they had a model and it just worked. If we could go back, we probably would do some things slightly differently.
But then the current housing is going to go on the other side of the tennis courts. Anybody who knows the campus, we have about thirty acres down there. So those are gonna go on the other side of the current tennis courts, kind of in the same region where the housing currently sits.
EBS: In addition to building infrastructure for housing, what are the other sorts of housing-related initiatives that this general fund levy would help support?
DS: It will help support rental assistance, mortgage assistance, down payment assistance if, and when, needed. We’ll still have to structure all that out to see how that money flows through to the faculty and staff and to the employee.
But the key thing is, we have really, really strict reporting requirements. So that 6% above our general fund has to be allocated for housing, in some form.
