## Facts

- Parents in the Rosebud and Big Horn areas petitioned to move both their children’s high school attendance and the associated territory (and tax base) from Lame Deer High School District (LDHSD) to neighboring districts.
- The affected territories bordered the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation and contained comparatively valuable non-reservation taxable property that helped fund LDHSD.
- LDHSD asserted that transferring both territories would drastically reduce its taxable valuation, leaving approximately $161,000 in taxable value located entirely within the reservation.
- The county school superintendent granted the petitions under Mont. Code Ann. § 20-6-320 (1997), which required the superintendent to consider the “effects of the transfer” on residents of the territory to be transferred and on residents remaining in the original district.
- In granting the transfers, the superintendent emphasized perceived educational and practical benefits for petitioning families (e.g., proximity, transportation, programs, and extracurricular opportunities).
- LDHSD sought judicial review, arguing both that the transfer decisions were improper and that § 20-6-320 unconstitutionally delegated legislative power.

## Issues

1. Whether Mont. Code Ann. § 20-6-320 unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to county school superintendents to alter school district boundaries and tax bases, violating Montana’s separation-of-powers doctrine.
2. Whether the statute’s instruction to “consider the effects of the transfer” supplied sufficient standards and safeguards to constrain administrative discretion.
3. If the statute were valid, whether the county superintendent properly exercised discretion in granting the Rosebud and Big Horn territory transfers.

## Decision

- The Montana Supreme Court reversed the district court.
- The Court held that Mont. Code Ann. § 20-6-320 was unconstitutional because it delegated legislative power without adequate standards or procedural safeguards.
- Because the statute was unconstitutional, the superintendent’s orders approving the territory transfers were invalid.
- The Court remanded with instructions to vacate the transfer orders.

## Legal Principles

- Altering school district boundaries and reallocating the related tax base is a legislative function; any delegation of that function must be guided by sufficiently definite statutory standards.
- Under Montana separation-of-powers and nondelegation doctrine, the Legislature may delegate authority only if it supplies intelligible principles and adequate safeguards to prevent arbitrary or discriminatory decision-making.
- A directive to merely “consider the effects” of a proposed transfer, without specifying relevant factors, priorities, limits, or meaningful oversight mechanisms, confers excessive discretion and is constitutionally insufficient.
- Limited, highly deferential judicial review does not substitute for legislative standards where administrative decisions can substantially reshape public finance and local governmental structure.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated Montana’s territory-transfer statute because it granted county school superintendents broad power to shift school district boundaries and tax bases without meaningful legislative standards or safeguards, requiring vacatur of the approved transfers from Lame Deer High School District.


In re Petition to Transfer Territory, 15 P.3d 447 (Mont. 2000)