Today was the last full committee meeting for Senate
Education and Health. Chairman Newman was determined to get through the entire
10-page docket this morning so as to not have another meeting. The committee sent
a few bills to Finance, so there is a sub today at 3pm and a full committee at
4:30pm so that they can finish everything up before they finalize their budget
for this weekend.
Senator Obenshain’s most recent charter school bill (SB1283)
and Senator Dunnavant’s Virtual School Bill (SB1240) will both go to sub and
full Finance today. VEA opposes both bills. We will know hopefully before the
rooster crows in the morning, what will happen with these bills. The days
leading up to crossover are always long as each body tries to finish up their
work.
Senator Stanley’s suspension bills (SB995 and 997) are
getting better, but are still concerning to us. We are working with him and
with the House version of the bills to get them to a place where the unintended
consequences of the current language are cleared up.
On the House floor, HB1962 which is Delegate Massie’s
expansion of his Tuition Tax Credit Scholarship was killed by a voice vote on
the second read. Gail Pittman has taken the lead on these bills and I tease
that we need to call her “Tax Credit Killer” as on her watch, this expansion
was killed, and the expansion to pre-schools also died. Can’t remember the last
time we had this much success slowing down the expansion of Massie’s program.
Thanks Gail!
Tomorrow we will have 100% confirmation that the Constitutional
Amendment on Charter Schools is dead. The full House Privileges and Elections committee
will meet at 9:30am. Right now the bill (Delegate Robert Bell HB629) is laying
on the table on sub-committee action. If the full committee doesn’t pick it up
tomorrow, it is dead. The Senate version is already gone, so if the House
version goes, we win this year and next year!
In some bad news, the VEA initiated legislation carried by
Senator McClellan (SB1476) that would require the DOE to develop training for
hearing officers in teacher dismissal cases was stricken by the patron. The DOE
put a fiscal impact statement on it that guaranteed its death, so we agreed
with Senator McClellan to strike the bill and try again next year. The good
news is that the School Boards Association is willing to work with us to
develop the training. We are hoping that will mitigate any cost that the DOE is
concerned with. It’s an off-session project we are committed to working on.
The House and Senate will present their budgets on Sunday.
It is time to tell the chairs of the money committees to REMEMBER SCHOOL
EMPLOYEES! Take action as a cyberlobbist using the link below.
