As we approach
tomorrow's crossover deadline the calendars in each chamber are thick. Many bills are up for consideration.
In the House, VEA's anti-bullying bill, sponsored by Delegate McClellan, gained final passage on a strong 93-6 vote.
The Governor's
grade-the-schools bill passed the House (55-40), but was amended to a form more
to our liking in the Senate.
Significantly, the amendments offered by Senator Barker postponed
implementation of the bill "until student growth factors are included in
determination of grades." Prior to
amendment, the bill would have assigned grades next year based on current state
and federal accountability measures and then switched to the student growth
factors in the next year. Reasonable
legislators questioned the wisdom of grading one way and then switching - correctly
assessing that this would cause confusion.
As the House and Senate bills will vary, it appears that these bills
will be heading to a committee of conference.
Please look for more on this later.
Bills to require
CPR training of all teachers for licensure and re-licensure passed in both
chambers. VEA had asked that this
training be offered as in-service and not associated with licensure.
Tomorrow, each
chamber must complete work on its own bills prior to midnight. Then bills cross to the other chamber.
It is appearing
that this session may well last beyond the scheduled date of February 23, as
there is a standoff in the Senate over the issues of Medicare expansion and the
diversion of General Fund dollars to pay for transportation. The Democrats want the expansion as it will
insure as many as 420,000 Virginians who are currently uninsured including
33,000 veterans, it will create 30,000 jobs, and if Virginia doesn’t take the
$2 billion in federal revenue it will be shared by the other states. If the budget does not include Medicare
expansion it appears that all 20 Democrats will vote against the bill, and it
won’t pass.
The other
contentious budget issue is the diversion of General Fund revenues, 30% of
which goes to schools, to pay for transportation. This, too, appears to be a deal breaker for Senate Democrats.
