Missoula Representative Ammends Bill to Remove Appropriations for Missoula College

Governor Steve Bullock’s proposed budget includes the appropriation of nearly 88 million dollars for the construction of new college buildings throughout the state.

The funding is currently tied up in House Bill 14, known as the Jobs and Opportunity by Building Schools, or JOBS, bill. 29 million dollars of that funding is directed at the Missoula college, but this week, Missoula area representative David Moore put forward an amendment to have that particular funding removed.

“Everybody agrees that it’s a good project, but the location is the sticking point on it and there’s a lot of people in the community that don’t feel that that process was fully vetted properly,” says Moore. “So what I’d like to do is pull that funding out. It’s the only project in H.B. 14 that has had any controversy. That would give the university and the community two years to work out their differences and come back to the legislature as a united front.”

Moore says he is personally against locating the college on the University golf course and says he has doubts about the long term benefits of the college.

“They really don’t have any clear numbers on what we’re going to be training people for,” says Moore. “That brings you the whole question about the changing face of education. Some things you have to do hands on, but were shifting so much to internet learning that I don’t know that building a building for 50 to 100 years is smart in the long run.”

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The governors budget estimates that passing the full JOBS bill would result in 2,400 jobs with a 300 million dollar economic impact.