In the Senate:
Today the Senate passed :
HB 4026 – Related to Higher Education Capitol Facilities. This bill was laid over for one day and will be on 3rd reading tomorrow for consideration of passage. This bill removes some capital facilities responsibilities from the governing boards and places them with the Higher Education Policy Commission.
HB 4306 - Relating to public school support computation of local share that extends the time for assessors to assess within 60% of market value before penalties are placed on County Boards of Education funding.
HB 4436 – Provides discretion to schools achieving full accreditation by allowing it to request a waiver of any assessments and instructional strategies that are not mandated by the State Department of Education. The bill requires the State Board to list optional testing instruments.
Laid over again to repeat 2nd Reading Monday:
With amendments pending from the Senate Education Committee, HB 4652 – Establishes a school calendar committee. The bill varies from the Senate only slightly. The Senate bill adds a parent representative to the committee and also requires the School Calendar Committee to present 3 calendars to the employee population for consideration while the House version requires 2 or more. The House is expected to amend this legislation to clarify the procedure to follow for Counties sharing Vocational Centers.
House Bills read a 2nd time and avanced to 3rd reading.
HB 4211 provides supplemental funding plan for limited English proficient students. This bill requires that Counties apply to the Sate Department of Education for funds and the DOE then distributes funds appropriated by the legislature and take into account the proficiency levels of students in a county in addition to the county’s ability to deliver the programs. No funding has been appropriated for this legislation, however.
HB 4669 grants exceptions to the Innovation Zone applicants who need waivers of state code to begin the innovation zone plan.
Advanced with right to amend is HB 4512 - This bill defines itinerate staff in addition to placing eligibility requirements of 5 years experience on new transportation supervisors. The language also requires job postings to include a location and duration for the job.
Senate Finance Committee passed HB 4324 which extends the expiration date of employment of retired teachers beyond post-retirement employments limits in areas of critical needs.
Senate Judiciary Committee passed HCR 101 which would provide tax waivers for new inventories if a constitutional amendment is voted on by half of voters. WVEA was the only education organization present at the meeting and President Dale Lee was the only person invited to speak against the legislation and express concerns about the approximately $200,000,000 in future tax income and the negative impact on education. The bill was passed out of committee and read a first time then recommitted to the same committee for additional conversation and debate to occur tomorrow morning
In the House
On 2nd reading today and advancing to 3rd reading were:
SB 547- Correcting language that varies from another section of the code, stating when County Board’s of Education may meet following a levy election.
SB 499 – Changes the names of certain Community and Technical colleges
SB 648 – Repeals and removes outdated code sections
Also on 3rd reading with a restricted right to amend is SB 480 – The higher education personnel bill. This bill was referred to Finance but the second reference was dispensed. This legislation provides many changes to the system colleges use for evaluating and promoting classified workers.
Read a 1st time and advanced to 2nd reading was SB 229 which allows the School Building Authority to issue additional bonds for projects.