Montana Land Board overhauls trust-land exchange policy for the first time since 2004

The Montana Board of Land Commissioners voted 4-0-1 on May 18 to adopt the state's first land-exchange policy revision in more than two decades, shifting some decision-making authority from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation back to the five elected Land Board members. State Auditor James Brown, who sponsored the revisions, called the change a "red-tape reduction" that restores "the financial and final decisions making back into the hands" of the board. The new policy preserves at least seven public-review checkpoints — DNRC preliminary review, the Montana Environmental Policy Act process, and Land Board meetings — and tells DNRC to apply a "commercially reasonable discount" to parcels lacking documented legal access. Gov. Greg Gianforte abstained from the vote after the board declined his request for an additional 30-day public scoping period.

Coverage: Montana Free Press, Daily Inter Lake, Montana DNRC Land Board.

Minnesota closes the session with the Permanent School Fund amendment on the November track

Minnesota's 2026 legislative session ended May 18 with the Permanent School Fund constitutional amendment still in the closed-session education package, confirming that November ballots will ask voters to raise the annual distribution from the Permanent School Fund to school districts from 2.5 percent to 4.5 percent of the fund's three-year average net asset value. The proposal — last week's Issue 4 lead — has now cleared the floor vote, the conference-committee report, and the end-of-session package, and moves to the voters in November 2026. The next process marker is already on the calendar: the Legislative Permanent School Fund Commission meets May 26 at the Legislative Coordinating Commission in Saint Paul, chaired by Senator Mary Kunesh.

Coverage: Session Daily (Minnesota House), HF 3900 bill text, KAXE.

New Mexico's May state oil-and-gas lease sale draws $11.46 million for the school trust

The New Mexico State Land Office's May 19 sealed-bid oil-and-gas lease sale produced $11,458,516 in high bids across six tracts totaling 1,001.85 acres. The sale is part of the State Land Office's standing third-Tuesday-of-every-month cadence, in which oil-and-gas tracts on state trust minerals are offered for competitive sealed bids; bonus payments flow to the Permanent Land Grant Fund and the Land Maintenance Fund, with public schools the largest beneficiary class. The May state sale ran one day before the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's record-setting federal lease sale in the Delaware Basin — different trust posture, different dollar magnitudes, but a useful reminder of how much subsurface activity is moving through the region this spring.

Coverage: NM State Land Office — Lease Sale Notices and Results, Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard.

America's school trust lands move through state legislatures, courts, agency boardrooms, and lease desks — rarely all visible in one news cycle. This Newsroom's job is to put the week's moves in one place, so anyone who cares about these lands can stay current with what is being done to them.

How school trust lands work

Every state admitted after Ohio received its school lands inside a survey grid: townships six miles square, divided into 36 numbered sections, each section a square mile of 640 acres. Section 16 — and in some later states, additional numbered sections — was reserved for schools. The geometry was not incidental. A child anywhere in the state was supposed to be inside a township that carried its own school endowment. The grid is why "school lands" sit in roughly the same place across the western half of the country, state after state.

Published by Oregon Advocates for School Trust Lands (OASTL), 12875 Kings Valley Highway, Monmouth, OR 97361. Editor: Dave Sullivan. Editorial methodology: schooltrusts.net/newsroom/about/.