Roy Brown, the Republican candidate for governor, proposed Friday paying $10,000 in signing bonuses to some full-time beginning teachers, particularly in rural areas.

If approved by the Legislature, his plan would offer these bonuses, paid to teachers over three years.

Brown hasn't settled yet on how many teachers would get the bonuses under his proposal. But if it were 500, like a bill he co-sponsored in 2003, the cost would be $5 million from state general fund.

He has not decided how the bonuses would be allocated, but one of his top priorities is to help rural schools attract new teachers. The Office of Public Instruction would administer the program.

"These rural schools are desperate for good teachers who are willing to come there," Brown said.

He said this program might help keep more teachers in Montana. He cited statistics that teachers can make $10,000 to $20,000 a year more in Wyoming than in Montana.

Brown said the slogan of his his opponent, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, "Montana's on the Move," is correct because Montana teachers are moving to Wyoming and other states for better-paying jobs, just as oil rigs are moving from Montana to North Dakota.

Besides being able to pay teachers higher salaries, Brown said Wyoming also has a statewide program that has paid for newer school buildings across the state because "they have developed their natural resources, and we have left ours underground."

The bill will be similar to one sponsored in 2003 by Sen. Corey Stapleton, R-Billings, and co-sponsored by Brown. He called the proposal a first step.

"Just because you live in a small town doesn't mean your children don't deserve the best education," Brown said. "We have some fantastic teachers that are raised in Montana and trained in Montana. It's time we do something to keep them teaching the next generations of Montana."

In response, Schweitzer's campaign manager, Harper Lawson, said Brown has been in the Legislature since 1999.

"But only now, 50-some days before this election, does he propose a token plan for Montana teachers -- a plan that focuses only on new teachers, not a plan that rewards hard-working Montana teachers who have already invested years here in Montana educating our kids," Lawson said.

In contrast, he said Schweitzer has been focused on "both teacher retention and recruitment, signing into law generous student loan-forgiveness programs, funding teacher retirement programs, and increasing the state's investment in education by 27 percent -- more than the previous two administrations combined."

That 27 percent figure is over a four-year period, starting in 2005, and pertains only to the state share for school funding, or about half of overall funding. The increase this year is about 2 percent, and schools have gone back to court, saying the increases are not enough to sustain a constitutionally guaranteed quality public education.

A trial in the case is scheduled to begin later this month in District Court in Helena.