Upward Communities Research
In Big Sky, Montana, average rent runs higher than a beginning teacher's gross pay. In Jackson, Wyoming, the district now rents one-bedroom apartments to its staff for less than half of market. Both school districts have stopped waiting for the housing market and started building, on very different budgets and at very different scales.
Key findings
1. In Big Sky, market rent is higher than a beginning teacher's salary. Big Sky School District reports average rent of $4,200 a month and an average home price of $1.8 million, against a beginning teacher salary of $44,000 to $45,000. A year of average rent, $50,400, exceeds that salary before tax. KBZK, 2026.
2. Big Sky's district has built 12 units for $2.8 million, and outside partners paid half of the latest six. Six two-bedroom units with Habitat for Humanity in 2020 cost $1.3 million. Six modular one-bedrooms installed behind Big Sky High School in August 2026 cost $1.5 million, with $375,000 each from the Yellowstone Club Community Foundation and the Big Sky Resort Area District. KBZK, 2026.
3. Teton County School District's newest building cost about $667,000 a unit. The Buttes, 24 apartments on South Park Loop Road in Jackson, cost $16 million of sales tax revenue approved by voters in 2022. One-bedrooms rent to staff for $1,460 including utilities. A one-bedroom at a nearby market-rate complex rents for more than $3,500. Jackson Hole News&Guide and KHOL, 2026.
4. Commuting among Jackson's school staff doubled in two years. The share of Teton County School District's 571 staff living outside the county rose from 13% in 2021 to 28% in 2023, according to the Jackson/Teton County Housing Supply Plan. Commuting costs ran $525 a month over Teton Pass and $855 from northern Lincoln County. Buckrail, 2023.
5. The wider communities are paying for land and deed restrictions at a scale districts cannot. Big Sky voters authorized up to $54.75 million of resort tax debt in May 2025, and the Big Sky Community Housing Trust bought 99 acres for $39.75 million in January 2026 to build 389 deed-restricted homes. Teton County has created about 1,550 deed-restricted homes since 1994. Explore Big Sky, 2025; Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 2026; Jackson/Teton County Affordable Housing Department, 2023.
6. Neither district has published retention outcomes for its housing. Both programs are recent and both are reported through occupancy, waitlists and staff accounts rather than measured turnover. Until that data exists, the case rests on the cost gap, which is not in dispute, rather than on a demonstrated retention effect.
Because the housing market in these towns is set by second-home buyers and short-term renters, not by local wages. In Big Sky, a beginning teacher earns $44,000 to $45,000 and average rent is $4,200 a month. In Jackson, the median-income household could afford a home of about $390,000 when the average new home cost $858,000 to build.
Big Sky School District serves about 350 students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade with 60 employees, 33 of them teachers. Its average teacher salary of $62,000 sits above the Montana average of $58,000. It makes almost no difference. At the district's reported average rent of $4,200 a month, a teacher at the district average would spend about 81% of gross pay on rent. A beginning teacher would spend more than all of it. "Recruiting to this community is easy," Superintendent Dustin Shipman told KBZK, "until you start talking about housing."
The pressure is not new and it has not eased. A 2018 community survey found that half of Big Sky's roughly 3,090 employees commuted in, and that more than 400 long-term rentals had been lost in five years, a fifth of them to short-term rental conversion. By the first quarter of 2021, Explore Big Sky reported an average single-family listing price of $2.4 million and a long-term rental vacancy rate of zero.
Jackson's numbers are larger. Jackson Hole Sotheby's International Realty put the average single-family sale price in Jackson Hole at $6.33 million through the third quarter of 2025, and the median condominium or townhome at $1.4 million. The 2022 regional housing needs assessment, prepared by WSW Consulting, found rents up 65% since 2015 against wage growth of 30 to 40%, and estimated a $2.5 billion gap to close the mismatch between jobs and homes. Area median income for a one-person household was $89,390 in the county's 2023 figures, which disqualifies many teachers from income-restricted housing without making a market home remotely affordable.
That last point is the trap specific to resort towns. A teacher can earn too much to qualify for affordable housing and far too little to buy or rent at market. Teton County School District made exactly this argument to voters in 2022: staff were being disqualified from affordable programs on salary, and the one-year residency rule for local housing meant a new hire could not get in at all in their first year.
Twelve units in two phases, for $2.8 million in total. It is a small program by any measure, but at 60 employees, 12 units can house a fifth of the district's workforce.
The district began in 2020 with Habitat for Humanity, building two triplexes containing six two-bedroom units at a cost of $1.3 million. Rents are set two ways. Staff sharing a unit pay $500 a person. A staff member living alone pays 28% of contracted salary, which works out to between $750 and $1,200 a month.
The second phase used a different method. Six one-bedroom, one-bathroom homes of about 600 square feet were built off site by Riverside Cabins in Great Falls, transported to Big Sky in June 2026 and installed behind Big Sky High School in August. They cost $1.5 million and rent for $650 a month. Five of the six were occupied when KBZK reported on the project.
Half of the cost came from outside the district. The Yellowstone Club Community Foundation and the Big Sky Resort Area District, which administers the local resort tax, each contributed $375,000. The district paid the rest. That structure matters: in a resort economy, the employers and tax districts that depend on teachers being present are often willing to pay for part of the housing that keeps them there.
A 24-unit apartment building in Jackson, opened in spring 2026 for $16 million of voter-approved sales tax. It tripled the district's employee housing stock and filled almost immediately.
Teton County voters approved $16 million for employee housing in the 2022 Specific Purpose Excise Tax ballot, a one-cent local sales tax that funds named capital projects. The district's case rested on turnover: it reported 66 staff resignations at the end of one spring semester, only six of them retirements, and estimated it spent up to $50,000 on each new hire in onboarding, mentoring and training. It also told voters that Wyoming does not let school districts borrow for employee housing. The district later drew on a loan from the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments, which KHOL reported accelerated construction.
The Buttes, on South Park Loop Road, opened in April 2026. Rents include utilities: $1,460 for a one-bedroom, $1,860 for a two-bedroom and $2,460 for a three-bedroom. KHOL reported that a one-bedroom at The Loop, a market-rate complex nearby, rents for more than $3,500. Twenty-two of the 24 units were assigned by early May, and fewer than ten applicants were turned away. "I had at least three staff ask if they could hug me because they were so excited," said Charlotte Reynolds, the district's executive director of communications.
The Buttes formalized rules the district had previously applied case by case. At least one resident must earn 75% of household income in Teton County and work at least 1,560 hours a year, about 30 hours a week. Residents may not own property within 150 miles of Jackson. Units are allocated by an unweighted lottery in which staff receive one entry per full year of service and one bonus entry for positions with emergency responsibilities, and one unit a year is held back for a new hire.
The district reported a total of 39 employee units once The Buttes opened. Published counts do not reconcile exactly: the county's 2023 Housing Supply Plan listed 19 to 23 employer-provided units for the district before construction. The district plans two more 24-unit buildings on the same site, for 72 in total, potentially from 2028 or after a future sales tax measure.
On cost per unit, the gap is nearly threefold. Big Sky's modular one-bedrooms cost $250,000 each. Jackson's apartments cost about $667,000 each. The difference reflects building type, site and Jackson's construction market rather than a judgment about either district.
| Project | Units | Cost | Per unit | Staff rent | Funding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Sky phase one (2020) | 6 two-bedroom | $1.3M | $216,667 | $500 per person shared, or 28% of salary living alone | District with Habitat for Humanity |
| Big Sky phase two (2026) | 6 one-bedroom | $1.5M | $250,000 | $650 | District, Yellowstone Club Community Foundation and Big Sky Resort Area District |
| The Buttes, Jackson (2026) | 24 one- to three-bedroom | $16M | $666,667 | $1,460 to $2,460 incl. utilities | 2022 voter-approved sales tax and a state loan |
Per-unit figures are calculated from the published totals. Big Sky's rents are lower partly because its units are smaller and partly because its first phase ties rent to salary rather than to the building's cost.
Building or financing housing at a scale no school district can, and using deed restrictions to keep it local. Districts are one employer among many, and in both places the larger effort is led by a housing trust or a joint town and county department.
Big Sky is unincorporated, so its main local revenue is a resort tax on tourist spending. In April 2025 Montana enacted Senate Bill 172, which lets resort tax communities spend their 1% infrastructure tax on workforce housing. In Big Sky that tax raises about $5 million a year. The Big Sky Community Housing Trust estimated the community needed roughly 1,300 more homes by 2028.
On May 6, 2025, Big Sky voters approved, 735 to 455, authority for the resort tax district to issue up to $54.75 million of debt for land and infrastructure. In January 2026 the Housing Trust bought 99 acres within walking distance of the town center from Lone Mountain Land Company for $39.75 million, 14% below appraised value. The planned Cold Smoke neighborhood would add 389 homes, 264 apartments and 125 two- and three-bedroom houses, for about 1,000 year-round workers, with occupancy from 2027 to 2029. Ownership homes are targeted at $500,000 to $650,000 and permanently capped at 2% annual appreciation on resale.
"For decades, locals have had no choice but to sit by and watch as more and more of the community's dwindling land is snapped up for homes that are further and further out of reach," said David O'Connor, the Housing Trust's executive director.
Jackson and Teton County run a joint affordable housing department with a stated goal of housing 65% of the workforce locally. By the department's 2023 count, about 1,550 deed-restricted homes had been created since 1994, with more than 900 in the pipeline. The 2022 needs assessment found that 41% of homes built in the county since 2015 were deed restricted, and that the county still needed about 5,000 more homes over five years.
Other public employers are building alongside the district. St. John's Health committed $24 million to a 72-unit project, the Hitching Post, and the town and county each committed $10 million, according to KHOL. The fragility of the commuting alternative became visible in June 2024, when a landslide closed the highway over Teton Pass: the Jackson Hole News&Guide reported about 3,227 people commuting daily from Teton Valley, Idaho, and roughly 6,000 extra vehicles a day diverted onto the southern route.
Candour
In four places, and they matter more than the ribbon cuttings suggest.
Scale. Teton County School District's 39 units cover well under a tenth of its 571 staff. Big Sky's 12 units go further only because the district is very small.
Cost. At about $667,000 a unit, Jackson's building needed a dedicated sales tax to exist at all. Districts that cannot ask voters for one, or cannot borrow for housing, have no equivalent route.
Outcomes. Neither district has published turnover data for staff in its housing compared with staff outside it. Waitlists and full occupancy show demand, not retention.
Eligibility. Lotteries, local-income tests and homeownership bans decide who benefits. A district should expect staff who lose the lottery, or who already own a home far away, to ask why the benefit is not universal.
Second-home buyers and short-term rentals compete for a small, land-constrained housing stock, and prices follow their budgets rather than local wages. Jackson Hole's average single-family sale price was $6.33 million through the third quarter of 2025, and Big Sky School District reports average rent of $4,200 a month.
Twelve units in two phases: six two-bedroom units in two triplexes with Habitat for Humanity in 2020 for $1.3 million, and six modular one-bedroom homes installed behind Big Sky High School in August 2026 for $1.5 million. The newer units rent for $650 a month.
With $16 million approved by voters in the 2022 Specific Purpose Excise Tax ballot, a local one-cent sales tax for named capital projects, supported by a loan from the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments. The district told voters that state law does not let school districts borrow for employee housing.
$1,460 a month for a one-bedroom, $1,860 for a two-bedroom and $2,460 for a three-bedroom, utilities included. KHOL reported that a one-bedroom at a nearby market-rate complex rents for more than $3,500.
At least one resident must earn 75% of household income in Teton County and work at least 1,560 hours a year. Residents may not own property within 150 miles of Jackson. Units are allocated by lottery with one entry per year of service, a bonus entry for emergency-response roles, and one unit a year reserved for a new hire.
A planned neighborhood of 389 deed-restricted homes on 99 acres near Big Sky's town center, bought by the Big Sky Community Housing Trust for $39.75 million in January 2026 using resort tax debt that voters approved in May 2025. Ownership homes are targeted at $500,000 to $650,000 with resale appreciation capped at 2% a year.
It has not been measured yet in either district. Both programs filled quickly and Teton County's attracted more applicants than units, but neither has published turnover rates for staff in district housing. The strongest published retention evidence elsewhere comes from Santa Clara Unified's Casa del Maestro in California.
Because income limits are tied to area median income, and many teachers earn just above them while still earning far too little for the local market. Teton County School District made this argument directly when it asked voters to fund housing for its own staff.
Sources
We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or in partnership with any organisation cited below.
KBZK. (2026). Big Sky School District addresses teacher housing challenges with new affordable units Source for Big Sky rents, home prices and salaries, both housing phases, costs, rents, partners and the superintendent's quote.
Jackson Hole News&Guide. (2026). Teton County School District opening 24-unit South Park Loop employee housing complex Published 23 March 2026. Source for The Buttes unit mix, rents, cost, eligibility rules, lottery design and the 39-unit total.
KHOL 89.1. (2026). School district opens 24 new homes, anticipating more Published 22 April 2026. Source for the market-rate comparison, state loan, applicant numbers, future phases and the St. John's Health, town and county commitments.
Jackson Hole News&Guide. (2026). New TCSD housing eases burden for employees, provides stability Published 6 May 2026. Source for occupancy at opening.
Jackson Hole News&Guide. (2022). SPET: $16M for Teton County School District employee housing Source for the ballot request, resignation figures, per-hire cost estimate and the district's statement on borrowing.
Buckrail. (2023). Housing Supply Plan 2023: core services commuter statistics Published 12 April 2023. Source for school district staff and commuting shares and commuting costs.
Jackson/Teton County Affordable Housing Department. (2023). Teton County housing presentation to the Wyoming Legislature Source for deed-restricted home counts, the 65% resident-workforce goal and area median income.
Jackson Hole News&Guide. (2022). New data leads to $2.5B estimate for Teton housing fix Source for the WSW Consulting needs assessment: the $2.5 billion gap, 5,000 homes needed, construction cost and buying capacity, rent and wage growth.
Jackson Hole Sotheby's International Realty. (2025). Jackson Hole Market Report, Q3 2025 Source for single-family and condominium sale prices.
Jackson Hole News&Guide via Wyoming News Exchange. (2024). 6,000 more cars than usual cruised canyon during Teton Pass closure Published 3 July 2024. Source for Teton Valley commuter and traffic figures.
Explore Big Sky. (2018). Housing survey finds 400-plus rentals lost in 5 years Published 14 April 2018. Source for commuting share, employee count and lost rentals.
Explore Big Sky. (2021). Workforce housing remains top Big Sky concern Published 31 December 2021. Source for 2021 listing prices and rental vacancy.
Explore Big Sky. (2025). Bill passes to help resort tax communities fund workforce housing Source for Senate Bill 172, infrastructure tax revenue and the 1,300-home estimate.
Explore Big Sky. (2025). Big Sky votes yes across the ballot in May 6 election Source for the resort tax debt vote and David O'Connor's quote.
Bozeman Daily Chronicle. (2026). How a $40M land purchase in Big Sky may chart a new path toward affordable housing Published 29 January 2026. Source for the Cold Smoke land purchase, unit mix, price targets and deed restriction. This article describes the bond as backed by about $60 million of resort tax revenue; we use the $54.75 million authorization reported from the ballot.
The cost gap in a resort town is easy to show and hard to close. We can run the same comparison against your own salary schedule, local rents and land, and tell you whether the numbers support a project before anyone commits to one.
Get in touch →Upward Communities develops workforce housing for public sector employers and has a commercial interest in this subject. None of the projects described on this page is an Upward project. Every figure here names its source so you can check it without taking our word for anything.
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