Three priorities, in the order Liz puts them. Education comes first because she calls it her priority.
Priority one
Montana funds its public schools with a model that is more than twenty years old. It was written for a different state: different enrollment, different property values, different costs to keep a building open in January. When the formula falls short, the bill does not disappear. It lands on local taxpayers, and it lands hardest in the years money is already tight, in the districts with the least room to absorb it.
That is not a stable way to run a school system, and it is not fair to the people paying for it. Liz wants a funding system a parent can actually read, where the state share and the local share are published side by side, and where the money follows what students need rather than what the formula assumed in 2005.
The age of the funding model and the local cost shift are Liz’s claims, from her 2026 campaign walk card.
We need a system that focuses on transparency and students. This is my priority.
Elizabeth Heald, 2026 walk card
If your school is why you are voting this year, tell Liz what you are seeing.
Priority two
The Montana Dream is getting priced out. By Liz’s count, property taxes rose more than fifteen percent between 2022 and 2024. Wages did not move with them. The people who feel that gap first are the ones with the least flexibility: seniors on a fixed income who have owned the same house for forty years, and young families trying to buy their first one in a market that keeps moving away from them.
Rent follows the same curve, because landlords pass the bill along. A tax system that behaves this way is not neutral. It quietly decides who gets to stay in the neighborhood they grew up in. Liz will push for real tax reform and for wages that keep pace with what it now costs to live in Billings.
The fifteen percent figure for 2022 to 2024 is Liz’s claim, from her 2026 campaign walk card.
The Montana Dream is getting priced out.
Elizabeth Heald, 2026 walk card
Bring Liz your tax bill and your story. Get in touch.
Priority three
Health insurance in Montana averages about $530 a month per person, by Liz’s count. For a couple that is more than a lot of mortgage payments in Billings. People run the numbers, decide they cannot carry it, and go without while hoping nothing happens. That is not a choice. It is a bet the house usually wins.
Mental health care is harder still. Children wait months for an appointment. Adults are told the nearest provider taking new patients is hours away. Families end up using the emergency room as a mental health system because nothing else will take them. Liz has spent her working life on the other side of that counter, first at the Social Security Administration and now as a caregiver, and she will work toward fair and affordable access for all Montanans.
The $530 per person monthly average is Liz’s claim, from her 2026 campaign walk card.
I will work to ensure all Montanans have fair and affordable access.
Elizabeth Heald, 2026 walk card
If you have waited for care you could not get, Liz wants to hear it.