Association of Alaska School Boards

Legislative Bulletin

A weekly digest of activity by the Alaska Legislature and U.S. Congress for Alaska’s School Board Members. AASB Tel. 907-586-1083, Fax 907-586-2995. Executive Director, Carl Rose, crose@aasb.org; Editor, John Greely, Review past issues of the Bulletin on the AASB website at http://www.aasb.org. To unsubscribe send an email requesting the same to jgreely@aasb.org

This bulletin is distributed by email only. School districts should copy for board members not online.

January 25, 2008

EDUCATION FUNDING BILL CLEARS FIRST COMMITTEE OF REFERRAL

A House committee voted unanimously to approve HB 273, the education funding bill, after school districts testified to the need for enacting changes to the foundation formula for K-12 schools. The vote on Tuesday, Jan. 22, moved the bill to the House Finance Committee, which quickly scheduled its own hearings next week.

After testifying to the House Health, Education & Social Services Committee, Executive Director Carl Rose issued the following statement:

“The consensus developed in September by the Joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force represents Alaska’s best hope in a decade for improvements to the foundation formula for K-12 schools. As a member of the task force, I joined the ten legislators on the panel in hearing in-depth testimony from many Alaska school districts about the needs of their teachers and students. I believe their testimony opened the eyes of our elected leaders to the challenges of our current funding formula, in particular as it addresses higher costs for rural schools and intensive needs students.

“As the Legislature considers the task force recommendations, I believe it is critical to remember the consensus reached by the task force on education funding is also a springboard to other agreements on funding retirement liability for public employees, including school teachers, and for revenue sharing with municipal governments. In all, hundreds of millions of dollars will flow to local communities if the Legislature can reach agreement on these three big issues.

“At the end of the 2007 regular session, the Legislature was unable to agree on implementing statutory changes to accomplish these three much-needed improvements to education, the retirement system and revenue sharing. My biggest fear is that at the end of the 2008 session, Alaska legislators find themselves with no agreement on these issues. Too much is at stake to fail to enact the consensus reached by the Legislative Education Funding Task Force.

“At the appropriate time, AASB would like to advocate for higher Base Student Allocation and a faster phase-in of the District Cost Factor, but those goals should not be deal-breakers in 2008. AASB member districts look forward to working with the Legislature and the Governor’s Office on addressing the recommendations of the task force in a quick and timely manner this session.”

AASB LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE AND LEGISLATIVE FLY-IN, FEB. 9-12

Have you registered for the 2008 AASB Leadership Conference & Legislative Fly In? If not, you can register via mail or fax using the attached brochure or you can register online at,

http://www.aasb.org/FORMS/Sprflyin.html.

The Leadership Conference and Legislative Fly In is scheduled to take place on February 9th - 12th, in Juneau at the Baranof Hotel. The Youth Advocacy

Institute will be held at the same time. Please review the attached brochure for further schedule and content information.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions. We look forward to seeing you in February.

EDUCATION BILLS UP FOR HEARINGS NEXT WEEK

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 1:30 House Finance Committee

HB 273 - Education Funding

Tuesday, Jan. 29, 3:00 House HESS

HCR 14 – Education standing committee

HJR 29 – Full federal funding of special ed

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 8 a.m. Senate Education Committee

SCR 15 – Standing Committee on Education

SB 240 – Education Funding

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 9 a.m. Senate Finance

SB 119 – School Library Grants

Friday, Feb. 1, 8 a.m. Senate Education Committee

SCR 16 - Education Funding Cost Factor Commission

SB 241 – University report on teacher training