The Board of Directors of Big Sky Economic Development (BSED), both the Economic Development Authority (EDA) and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) voted unanimously to endorse the Billings Public Schools/School District 2 safety mill levy.
While BSED is focused on the supporting the expansion of existing businesses, fostering entrepreneurship, the recruitment of new businesses, and the development of our community’s infrastructure and amenities, we understand how essential safe schools is to all this work.
“The assurance of safety, particularly in our schools, is a fundamental factor in determining quality of our community. Without the guarantee of safe schools equipped with resources for student well-being, our efforts in economic development, both as a public/private partnership, and in attracting business, may be compromised.” – Patrick Klugman, Senior Director of Economic Development Programs
BSED’s board of directors recognizes the importance of this safety levy as safe schools are a critical step in the community’s efforts to battle public safety challenges. It is important that BSED support this effort in the greater context of our economic development and community development work. This safety levy is important to our work in the following ways:
- Providing safety and support resources at the elementary and high school levels supports the development of our future workforce.
- The quality of our community is judged by many factors, a safe and quality education system is one of the key factors that supports our quality of life and thereby our ability to retain and attract families and a talented workforce.
- Our ability to attract new private investment is directly related to first assuring a safe community and safe schools. As we work to attract new businesses and support the expansion of existing industry, safety is a top-of-mind issue.
- All the work we do as the community’s economic development public/private partnership will be under-minded if we can’t promise safe schools, with the resources to provide for student’s safety and wellbeing, and career paths.+
Learn more here: https://sd2milllevy.org/