When we see yard signs alerting us to “support the schools” the obvious knee-jerk reaction is agreement. After all, who doesn’t want our kids to be smarter? And wouldn’t more school funding achieve this end?

One major problem with this logic is the assumption that making us pay more taxes in the name of promoting education will ever result in more money for the school district. This is not the case, especially in Missoula, Montana.

It’s a common misconception that arguing against a school levy signifies some kind of anti-education sentiment. The exact opposite is true. In fact, one must be economically educated to understand, in the first place, why throwing more of our money at the City government in the name of so-called education cannot actually do any good for our local public schools.

Last year Missoula voters were asked to approve four separate invitations to increase their property taxes with school levies. Three of the four were approved by voters, the combined total of which amounts to more than $2 million annually that many taxpayers foolishly believed would actually find its way to the schools.

It hasn’t.

Apparently no one in Missoula’s illustrious school district has yet seen one penny of the money promised by the school security levies that passed in the spring of 2024. In fact, there might be an internal investigation regarding where that money went, according to sources within the school district. This seems particularly distressing considering that enrollment in Missoula County Public Schools is down, not up, meaning costs should be fewer, not more.

One MCPS employee says that his co-workers often complain about their inability to replace broken equipment for reasons of budgetary shortfalls despite all the new levies passed each and every spring.

“I think the ultimate take away is that levies are getting passed and yet there is no show for it in the schools. There is no show in ways of improvements for the extra money received.”

Citizens might be thinking that taxes approved by special voter levies will end up in a special fund that can only be used for the school district’s needs. But just like the additional money collected from last year’s firefighter levy, all these additional taxes go instead into Missoula’s municipal general fund where they are then distributed at the whim of the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, an unelected board of mayoral-appointed bureaucrats who habitually drain our municipal budget with a scheme called Tax Increment Financing (TIF).

Former Missoula City Councilman Jesse Ramos confirms this unfortunate reality:

“If folks live in a TIF district that additional money in their tax bill still gets skimmed off and goes to the MRA.”

Jesse first became motivated to reveal the MRA’s brazen malpractices after witnessing firsthand how Missoula’s retirees are forced to sell their paid-off homes because of ongoing tax abuses. After beginning his career as a wealth management advisor with WestPac Wealth Partners, it’s an understatement to say that Ramos’ understanding of financial matters surpasses that of most nincompoops elected to city council who approve the MRA’s unending litany of unnecessary projects.

The City of Missoula certainly has enough money to fund our schools. Missoulians have done their part and the money was paid to the City by our property taxes. But the MRA takes that money and spends it elsewhere. These malefactors then exhibit the supreme audacity to act surprised that the budget is constantly in the red, whereupon they shame the voters into tightening our belts yet again.

This faith-based taxation system has become a recurring farce in Missoula. The annual tradition of begging cash-strapped Missoulians for more money because “won’t somebody think of the children” is a yearly rite based in logical fallacy.

Levies don’t bolster our schools but they do embolden the MRA as its overall budget grows larger every time a new levy is passed. The general fund is supposed to fund our roads, schools and municipal services, but since MRA constantly loots the slush fund, these common sense needs are all too often ignored for nonsensical priorities like enriching hoteliers and real estate tycoons or building a pedestrian bridge over Reserve Street that nobody ever uses. There are literally hundreds of examples.

When the schools finally reach their financial breaking point, they’re forced to beg for funding from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency. This happened last year when the school district was awarded a “remittance” of more than $2 million from the MRA.

The MRA acknowledged in 2024 that the school district was desperate for money with this remittance, and because the MRA exerts absolute power over Missoula’s financial books, they also wrote the check that made the schools temporarily whole again. But nobody ever asks why Missoula’s budget is presided over by a redevelopment agency that enjoys first dibs on all taxes collected.

The MRA alone decides where the money goes and how it’s divvied out. Not the mayor. Not the city council. Not the county commissioners. The MRA controls Missoula’s finances, and it’s director exists as the true power behind the throne in Zoo Town. Her name is Ellen Buchanan, and despite her commanding influence, most Missoulians have never heard of her.

Empress Ellen is unelected and unaccountable. Mayors come and mayors go but Ellen Buchanan remains in power. She’s been director of the MRA for more than twenty years now. Missoulians cannot vote her, nor any of her MRA colleagues, out of office and their spending policies are never subject to citizen approval. They use our tax money to fund development projects that overwhelmingly benefit those who make significant contributions to the reelection campaigns of the elected officials who tacitly consent to MRA’s fraudulent policies.

Think of it as a bureaucratic circle jerk.

Nobody can demand that MRA spend the general fund responsibly and nobody can stop MRA from introducing new levies or spending money on propaganda campaigns meant to bamboozle locals into supporting their own displacement through skyrocketing property taxes.

The parasites who benefit from public ignorance are able to get away with this grift because they know the public is too lazy to learn about economics. While it is true that many parents lack the time and energy to become economically or politically informed, they’re nevertheless completely susceptible to the emotional manipulation of bureaucratic brainwashing because of their willful ignorance. When naϊve people see a yard sign declaring “support the schools” the obvious knee-jerk is agreement. And no matter how much the public trust is betrayed, voters continue allowing it because they don’t understand how their myopia is regularly exploited by the cynics in power.

This trend exists largely because the school system has made sure that American adults are thoroughly uneducated when it comes to money, finance and economics by failing to even teach these subjects. Taxes and budgets aside, our children do not need more schooling, they need less, according to award-winning educator John Taylor Gatto. This might seem ironic to the uninitiated, considering that test scores are often considered the gold standard for those who believe in compulsory schooling to prove its worth. But the numbers are in. Pumping more money into a failed system will only result in an accelerated failure because schooling makes kids dumb, as intended. And dumb kids inevitably grow up into illiterate adults who are unable to comprehend how malicious institutions are financially exploiting them, and the whole cycle begins again.

If history provides any guide, next spring Missoula voters will again be staring down the barrel of yet another property tax hike in the name of funding municipal services that are already covered by existing property tax revenue. Missoulians will once again be invited to “just think of the children” while forgetting that their taxes were already increased the previous year in the name of education.

So how might taxpayers ever conceivably demand accountability from such a perverted system?

The obvious remedy is to stop voting for the levies. While not yet a majority, there are many Missoulians who have become wary of this trend as evidenced by the votes against the 2025 levy proposals. According to an Email sent out by Superintendent Micah Hill:

The total number of ballots cast and counted is 30,435. With 88,908 registered voters, voter turnout was 34.23%.

1. High School District General Fund Levy: PASSED. (For: 14,438; Against: 13,502)
2. High School District Safety Levy: FAILED. (For: 12,952; Against: 14,911)
3. Elementary District General Fund Levy: PASSED. (For: 10,383; Against: 7,118)

But voting against more tax increases won’t address the MRA’s unaccountable control over the City’s money or the fact that Missoulians are overcharged for institutional support that simply does not exist. Is it possible for Missoulians to deny another penny to the Missoula Redevelopment Agency until our tax kitty is spent more responsibly?

Perhaps a citizen of means could sue the MRA for detailed financial records to prove what is plainly observable: local taxes are not going where our officials allege they are but the MRA somehow always has plenty of money to throw at the pet projects of its favored donors.

Since Missoula’s unelected bureaucrats are positively addicted to public money it’s up to us to deny them the object of their addiction. Their obsession with short-term gains over long-term stability surpasses any potential loyalty that their constituents may erroneously believe is owed to them. Worst of all, none of this is technically illegal under state law and Montana’s clueless legislative bodies have no intentions of reigning in the abuse.

A mass campaign of civil disobedience aimed at refusing to pay another nickel in property taxes until the schools receive the money already available in the general fund seems like the only way to force the MRA’s blatant malfeasance into the light of day. This would require the participation of many property owners to support each other in the courts while also forcing the issue legislatively and making as much noise as possible through citizen initiatives and independent media. Such an action only seems like a pipe-dream because the pathologically obedient masses are mostly cowards who justify their cowardice by conflating it with pacifism. However, as more citizens are taxed out of their homes, perhaps the threat of poverty and homelessness will inspire the necessary urgency required to reform our crooked local government.

If Missoulians really desire to support their public schools it is paramount to demand budgetary accountability instead of further fueling the dumpster fire by approving more tax increases. Until we deal with the MRA, approving levies because we think we’re supporting the schools only further screws our neighbors with higher property taxes. The phrase “support our schools” is already nothing but a meaningless platitude based in misconceptions that contradict its intended sentiment. The schools exist at the pleasure of the MRA and the money our schools receive no longer bears any relationship to the will of the taxpayers.

Regardless of what the yard signs might allege, voting for school levies does not benefit the schools. It only benefits Empress Ellen and her cabal of corrupt cohorts.