This is the
point of the session when there are no committee meetings, but the floor
sessions last for hours and are interrupted by frequent recesses. Conference committees meet in every corner to
iron out the differences between the House and Senate versions of numerous
bills. Time move slowly, and staying
awake can become a challenge.
The big news of
the day was the House passage of the transportation plan – HB 2313. The Senate wants strong assurances from the
Governor that he will support Medicaid expansion prior to passing the transportation
plan. They adjourned early this evening when those assurances were not offered.
They go back into session at 10 am on Saturday.
The budget
conferees have not finished their work, which makes it likely that the session
will be extended.
I will post an update tomorrow.
The frequent
breaks give time to reflect upon the session.
In this tough session, when so much of our effort was defensive in
nature - VEA played some exceptional offense.
I can't remember a session when we successfully advanced as many
bills. In one area of note, we lost the
bills, but won the battle in the budget.
I'll discuss
defense another day, but let's talk offense.
Virginia's
underfunding of public education is a continuing crisis for our next
generation. Senator Saslaw's SJ 328, a
VEA initiated resolution calling on the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC), may turn the
education funding debate in our favor, as was the case with the last JLARC
study of the SOQ in 2002. Gaining
passage of this study resolution not only reflects years of work, but it
reflects the dogged willingness and determination of VEA. We fought for this measure when all other
education advocates saw its passage as unachievable.
For many years,
VEA has been working to gain a statewide health insurance option for Virginia's
educators. Both Delegate Yost's HB 1356
and Senator Barker's SB 1367 failed to
pass, but funds to do the feasibility study needed to achieve this goal are in
both the House and Senate budgets, assuring that this study will be done prior
to the next session. This progress on
this issue is the result of years of VEA work.
The passage of
Delegate Jennifer McClellan's HB 1871, the VEA initiated anti-bullying bill,
will have a chilling effect on all forms of bullying in our schools.
We have seen the
horrible effect of teacher evaluation information being provided to newspapers
in other states. We have all read of thesuicide of 5th grade Los Angeles teacher Rigoberto Ruelas following the
publication of his professional growth indicator in the LA Times. That won't happen in Virginia thanks to the
passage of Delegate LeMunyon's HB 1889, a VEA initiated measure which shields
teacher growth indicators from Freedom of Information Act requests.
Although we came
into the session fighting for a 4% salary increase for school employees, gaining 2% and having the increase provided for all school
employees, not just teachers, is significant.
This is the first salary funding provided by the state since 2007.
