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Late last year, Frenchtown couple Lauren and Kyle Cochrane found themselves faced with a conundrum that has hit families across the state and nation in recent years, abruptly losing a childcare arrangement that had kept their two young children cared for throughout the workday. The two have tried a number of strategies to fill the gap, the latest of which has them juggling their fully remote jobs with raising their 11-month-old daughter at home. They’ve chosen to focus on the bright spots — shared lunches, afternoon hikes — but acknowledge the situation is less than ideal.
I’ve spent the past few months reporting on the childcare crunch across western Montana, visiting with the Cochranes and other families as well as the providers attempting to meet their needs. Everyone I talked to painted a similar picture: Parents are struggling with high costs, and, on the flip side, providers are struggling to pay themselves and their workers a decent wage. The system isn’t just cracked. It’s crumbling, as evidenced by the estimated 66,000 Montanans who, according to the state health department, were unable to fully engage in the workforce last year due to childcare challenges.
That stat caught the attention of the national education news nonprofit Open Campus, which joined forces with MTFP this year to support my effort to get to the bottom of Montana’s childcare crisis. The resulting story, published this week, explored what’s happening in the lives of families and providers and also looked at what Montana higher education campuses — Salish Kootenai College in particular — are doing to help.
Scarce and costly childcare has become a major issue for Montanans who would otherwise choose to work outside their homes. State agencies and elected leaders recognize as much and have taken some steps toward change and debated others. But, like a Russian nesting doll, this workforce development challenge contains its own smaller workforce development challenge: Giving more Montana workers child care access means recruiting and retaining more professionals to care for and educate their kids.
Campus leaders like Leigh Ann Courville, co-director of SKC’s early childhood education program, say that can be a daunting task when the pay for such professionals is so low in Montana and nationally. The median wage in Montana’s childcare system in 2022 was just $12.84 an hour.
Meanwhile, costs are rising for families, who in 2023 paid an average of $18,940 for childcare. To say the stakes are high seems like an understatement, and childcare advocates are bearing up for what will likely be a busy legislative session on the issue in 2025.
Our collaboration with Open Campus included interviews with at least half a dozen Montanans who, while insightful, compelling and invaluable, didn’t make it into our initial story. And we’ve solicited additional feedback on the issue via a reader survey, so I expect those stories to keep on coming. I hope they do. As Lauren Cochrane told me, childcare struggles can leave many Montana parents feeling “like you’re on an island” — but it’s an island that is by no means sparsely populated.
READ MORE: Montana’s stubborn childcare conundrum.
—Alex Sakariassen, Reporter
Closeup 📸
Two years ago, Felicity Day opened the doors of the Alberton Early Learning Center in Mineral County, offering the area’s families a Montessori-style educational environment for children up to age 5. She now has 15 children enrolled in her program and employs one part-time and two full-time staffers. But demand for childcare in her community is high, and Day currently has eight more local families currently on a waiting list. She says she plans to expand to meet that need but has to comply with state-provider ratios that mean she would need to hire more staff, which would in turn mean increasing rates at a time she’s fully aware families are already feeling pinched.
“We have some families who are taking on a second job in order to keep their children here, we have some families who are only going part-time because they can’t afford full-time [care],” Day said. “I’m working with families on payment plans, everything we can do in order to keep children here, because our rates are going up substantially.”
—Alex Sakariassen, Reporter
Following the Law ⚖️
The ill-fated saga of 2021’s House Bill 92 fizzled to an end in a Missoula courtroom this week. The law, which was designed to provide government compensation to Montanans wrongfully convicted of criminal charges, had limped through a series of increasingly complicated iterations since its introduction.
Along the way, Cody Marble, the protagonist in an infamously contentious rape case that embroiled the Montana Innocence Project and Missoula County prosecutors in a decades-long battle, filed a lawsuit in 2021 seeking a $750,000 judgment authorized by the bill. That case hinged on whether Marble could prove his innocence of the crime for which he’d been convicted in 2002, and exonerated — though not declared definitively innocent — in 2016.
Arguing against Marble’s innocence this week was the same Missoula County whose prosecutors dismissed Marble’s rape charge and released him from prison in 2016 — and which would have been on the hook for 75% of any judgment awarded to Marble.
Marble is the only Montanan who ever sought — or will ever be able to seek — the judgment allowed by the 2021 law. A 2023 law that would have revised and extended the 2021 measure was vetoed by Gianforte, which allowed the compensation program to expire last summer. Because Marble filed his lawsuit in 2021, while the original law was still in effect, the case was allowed to continue.
The case came to its close last week when a state district court jury in Missoula determined that Marble, despite his exoneration, had failed to prove his innocence to the higher legal standard set by the now-defunct law.
READ MORE: Wrongful conviction claim fails in court.
—Brad Tyer, Editor
Verbatim 💬
“I was born and raised on a ranch [in] eastern Montana. We would go up to a reservoir for our cows to drink. There would be manure in it and they’d pee in it and we would be young, thirsty, so we would go out there and we would blow the hair away and we would drink. We made it, OK? … To me, that’s all natural stuff and I think we might be stretching some of this, these nutrients. … I don’t understand why we have to be so stringent.”
—Rep. Bob Phalen, R- Lindsay, speaking Tuesday at a Water Policy Interim Committee meeting regarding a rules package specifying water quality standards.
Phalen’s comment came after he and fellow committee members heard impassioned testimony from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the sewage treatment plant operators and industrial groups they regulate about the department’s fraught efforts to turn numeric standards for nitrogen and phosphorus into narrative water quality standards —a directive established by a bill the Montana Legislature passed in 2021.
For three years, DEQ has been meeting regularly with stakeholders to arrive at nutrient standards that will reduce algal blooms in Montana waterways without requiring prohibitively expensive treatment plant upgrades. Commenters critical of the pending rule package argued this week that there is too much uncertainty in the rules package, criticized the use of numbers in the new “narrative” rules, and characterized the agency-led effort as a “circus” lacking transparency. DEQ Director Chris Dorrington countered that one of the leading scientists working in the field has helped develop the rules and said the agency is constrained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which will ultimately have to approve any changes the state forwards.
DEQ is accepting comments on the draft rules through Monday, June 10. Industrial operators who discharge wastewater into state waterways indicated this week they might sue to stop the rules’ adoption. The committee also received a briefing on its options to formally object to the new rules.
—Amanda Eggert, Reporter
Campaign Trail 🇺🇸
Cascade County’s vocal debate over stripping election administration duties from the county clerk and recorder is now a campaign trail issue as County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski, a Republican, faces a primary challenge. Grulkowski has set herself apart as a dissenting voice on the all-Republican board, most publicly in last year’s 2-1 vote to place Great Falls area election duties in the hands of an appointed administrator.
Voters in District 3, which spans central Cascade County south of the Missouri River, have a chance to review Grulkowski’s work at the ballot box. She’s facing a primary challenge from Eric Hinebauch, a former Great Falls city commissioner and the chair of the county Republican Central Committee.
Both candidates are unhappy with the drama that played out during the polarizing elections administration debate, though they have different perspectives.
Grulkowski, who says her politics run to the right of many Republicans, hasn’t been happy with her past year in office. Her fellow commissioners removed her status as board chair by changing the way chairpersons are selected. And she said she’s open to an attempt to restore Merchant’s election duties if she retains her seat.
Hinebauch describes himself as a pragmatic business owner and fiscally conservative Republican. He has also been unhappy with the past year of county drama has struck a political posture more in line with the other two commissioners. District 1 Commissioner Joe Briggs is a donor to Hinebauch’s primary campaign.
The winner of the June Republican primary will face Democrat Don Ryan in the Nov. 5 general election.
READ MORE: Cascade County Commission primary opponents see dysfunction in the office but from different angles.
—Matt Hudson, MTFP Local Reporter
Highlights ☀️
In other news this week, we’ve published a bundle of stories aimed at helping Montana voters make sense of the options on their ballot through the spring primary, which concludes June 4.
Montana’s utility regulation board has caught a lot of heat in recent years over a variety of issues, including rising power bills, climate change and the energy grid’s transition away from coal power. As Amanda Eggert reports, the Public Service Commission has competitive GOP primaries in two of the three seats up for election this year.
Amanda also wrote this week about the two Republicans vying for the party’s nomination for state auditor, a position that is mostly focused on insurance regulation and prosecuting financial fraud.
As a reminder, our comprehensive 2024 Election Guide is live. We’ve also worked excerpts from the guide’s candidate questionnaires into standalone stories detailing what U.S. House candidates are saying about the southern border and what state superintendent candidates are saying about school funding.
On Our Radar
Amanda — Coverage of PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” can get weedy real quick. I was therefore taken with this POLITICO story that tells a harrowing story of buried science and willful ignorance through the experience of an early career 3M scientist who researched the widespread prevalence of one such chemical in human and animal blood decades before a recent federal crackdown on them.
Alex — The Choteau Acantha published a lengthy article this week about Teton County’s decision to terminate a long-standing law enforcement agreement with the city of Choteau.
Arren — The Flathead Beacon’s Denali Sagner published this excellent feature on the high-profile state Senate primary between outgoing Speaker of the House Matt Regier, a GOP hardliner, and security company executive Marquis Laude.
JoVonne — The television series “Yellowstone” has resumed filming in Missoula this week, as reported by NBC Montana.
Mara — What happens when 14 strangers from Wisconsin gather in a room for several days to talk, learn and try to find policy solutions about abortion? NPR breaks it down.
Matt — Like many industries, bicycle manufacturing undergoes corporate ownership changes that don’t always promote business sustainability. An example: Kona Bikes, loved by fans for its forward-thinking off-road and cyclocross models, faced shuttering from its owner, Kent Outdoors this year. But the brand’s ’80s-era founders announced this week they’re buying the company back. Road.cc has coverage here.
Eric — It’s tricky for journalists to fairly cover disputed history in situations where objective facts have been lost to the passage of time. This Washington Post story exploring a 1920 shootout where white lawmen who may or may not have been Texas Rangers killed three Tejano men who may or may not have been law-abiding travelers en route to a wedding does an admirable job of letting readers grapple with many different vantage points on the past.
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