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.

June 30, 2006

--GOVERNOR SIGNS CAPITAL BUDGET, VETOS $74 MILLION

--REP. YOUNG SPONSORS NCLB REWRITE

--NSBA PRAISES YOUNG’S NCLB APPROACH

GOVERNOR SIGNS CAPITAL BUDGET, VETOES $74 MILLION

On the last day of one fiscal year, Governor Frank Murkowski put his signature on a massive capital budget for the next fiscal year and beyond. SB 231 appropriates more than $2.5 billion in federal and state funds for a wide variety of projects around the state. It’s a bit lighter than it was – the governor used his line-item veto authority to eliminate 11 projects, chiefly $73.5 million earmarked for eight utility companies along the Railbelt. Three smaller appropriations $350,000 were also cut. Details should be available later today at this website:

http://www.state.ak.us/

For the education community, the signing of SB 231 will provide an estimated $210 million for construction of new schools, repairs to existing ones and money to purchase a variety of supplies and equipment. The measure also funnels $49 million to municipalities and local communities to offset the high cost of fuel and other commodities, as well as $19 million to pay the increased cost of public employee retirement benefits. AASB was cheered by news that the signing frees up $5 million to launch the new Consortium for Digital Learning. For an update on that initiative see this link:

http://aasb.org/Frontpage/Feature4.html

SB 231 was the last major budget bill pending from the 2006 legislative session. The Legislature is scheduled to go into special session on oil and gas issues beginning July 12. In his signing statement today, the governor noted that appropriations of $183 million to endow the Power Cost Equalization program and $73 million for three rural schools were made contingent in SB 231 on passage of a new oil tax bill.

REP. YOUNG SPONSORS NCLB REWRITE

In case you missed the announcement from his office, Congressman Don Young has introduced a bill to reform the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. He calls it the No Child Left Behind Improvement Act of 2006. Young’s office released the following news release on Wednesday:

http://donyoung.house.gov/PressRelease.aspx?NewsID=1644

NCLB is due for reauthorization next year.

NSBA PRAISES YOUNG’S NCLB APPROACH

The National School Boards Association likes the approach that Congressman Young has taken in crafting his rewrite of NCLB. Norm Wooten of Kodiak, who is president-elect of NSBA, said the bill would address “many of the major challenges facing students, schools and local school districts in achieving the goals of this important federal law.” For a closer look at the goals NSBA has in mind for improving the NCLB law, see this link:

http://www.nsba.org/site/docs/35300/35210.pdf

Have a great weekend and a patriotic July 4^th.