Tester introduces bill opposing change to metro population size

Montana’s Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester introduced legislation this week to prevent a change to the population requirements for metropolitan areas that could pose a problem Bozeman.

Earlier this year, the federal Office of Management and Budget released a proposal to increase the population threshold for an urban area to be considered a metropolitan from 50,000 to 100,000, which would kick two cities off the metro list and dim Bozeman’s hopes of ascending from a micropolitan area this year.

The metropolitan designation is used by federal agencies for funding allocations.