Updated March 1, 2002

The Schedule

The General Assembly has all but finished its committee work for the session, and with adjournment scheduled for Saturday, March 9, faces a long week ahead of floor debates on some of the most controversial bills of the year. Budget conferees were appointed earlier in the week and are slated to release their compromise spending plan by midnight Tuesday. The conference committee for the 2002-2004 budget is composed of the following legislators: Senators Chichester, Stosch, Wampler and Colgan, and Delegates Callahan, Putney, Dillard and Thomas.

The House Education Committee and the Senate Education and Health Committee have completed their work for this session. The House Education Committee meets Mondays at 8:30 a.m. in House Room C and Wednesdays at 8 a.m. in the Appropriations Room. The Senate Education and Health Committee meets Thursdays at 9:00 a.m. in Senate Room B. Sub-committees meet periodically throughout the session. Please click for a schedule of weekly meetings.

The Issues

As stated above, budget conferees have been appointed to negotiate a compromise spending plan, for both the remainder of FY02 and for the 2002-2004 biennium. They face a self-imposed deadline of midnight Tuesday. However, in recent years there have been occasions where that deadline has been extended, and even the session extended in order to reach compromise on the budget (recall that last year, no budget amendments were ever agreed upon).

We can anticipate that education funding will be one “bone of contention” in the negotiations. The Senate recommends restoring half of the funding for the School Construction Grants Fund ($27.5 million each year) that was proposed for elimination in the introduced budget. The House eliminates the program in the next biennium and also proposes to capture $19 million in school maintenance funding for use in other parts of the education budget.

The Senate recommends no teacher salary increase, while the House proposes a teacher pay raise of 2.75% effective December, 2003. The House proposes to address two of the recommendations proposed in the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) report on education funding (namely, addressing the issues of locally generated revenues and administrative costs) at a cost of more than $160 million. To accomplish this, the House plan eliminates or reduces a number of categorical and incentive programs, including several “big ticket” items like the additional teachers program ($58 million), dropout prevention ($11 million) and the SOL teacher training initiative ($35 million; note that the Senate proposes to shift to localities $15 million of the costs of this program, which has been 100% state funded).

The fate of legislation concerning regional or statewide referenda on sales tax or local income tax increases for transportation and/or education likely will come down to the end of the session. The Senate appears to be sticking to its position to allow voters across the state to decide whether to increase the sales tax by one-half percent to benefit public education, and to allow Northern Virginia voters to approve a sales tax hike to fund transportation projects. The House is standing by giving Northern Virginia localities the opportunity to impose one-half cent local option income tax for transportation only. SB 692, which was submitted late Thursday by unanimous consent, would allow Northern Virginia localities to enact a one-half percent local option income tax for education and transportation. Seven-and-a-half percent of the tax generated would be distributed to other localities in the state whose local composite index (LCI) is less than .3200, for public education purposes.

The House of Delegates has approved SB 625 that will require all school boards to review charter school applications; presently, local school boards are allowed to not consider applications after holding a public hearing and adopting a resolution stating such intent. Delegates had a spirited debate early in the week on this bill, which also stipulates that institutions of higher learning may submit charter school applications. Delegates opposed to the bill said that requiring applications to be reviewed would be an unfunded mandate, as there is a very extensive process involved in reviewing the lengthy applications. Supporters said it would open up the process to allow more charter schools. Only a handful of charter schools have been approved since the law was approved in 1998. The bill passed narrowly on a 52-46 vote, and now goes to the governor for his consideration. HB 734, approved by the Senate Education and Health Committee, makes only minor changes to the charter schools law.

Meanwhile, the Education and Health Committee has carried over for the year HB 45, which would have allowed temporarily employed teachers to work longer than 90 days as long as they held a bachelor’s degree or had relevant work experience. A similar bill was defeated last year. The Senate Education and Health Committee reported HB 1371, which requires age-appropriate instruction in various patriotic songs and holidays, and that character education programs include appreciation of various citizenship concepts and freedoms. However, the House defeated SB 570 on a 49-46 vote on Friday. The bill would have directed the Board of Education to develop guidelines for voluntary community service activities as part of character education programs.

Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee has approved two bills designed to help ease the shortage of teachers. Both HB 1137 and HB 1320 reduce the “break in service” requirement from one year to 30 days for retired teachers returning to work without losing retirement benefits, and stipulate that such teachers are allowed to teach only one year. The committee added an amendment that the bill becomes effective only if the IRS states that the bills’ provisions will not adversely affect the qualified plan status of the Virginia Retirement System under federal law.

Please click for access to all bills assigned to the House Education and Senate Education and Health Committees.

An update on CEPI-requested legislation to establish a legislative study committee to review, study and reform educational leadership:

The House version, HJR 20, patroned by Delegate Phil Hamilton, now has been reported from the Senate Rules Committee, while SJR 58, patroned by Senator Emmett Hanger, is pending in the House Rules Committee. Again, the number of legislators serving on this new Commission has been reduced from 14 to 8. The 13 non-legislative members (to include various education stakeholders) remain in these bills. The bills likely will be on the Senate and House floors, respectively, next week.

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Questions or More Information? Please contact CEPI if you have any questions or need additional information about the 2002 General Assembly. A final summary of legislative action from the 2002 General Assembly is posted on this Web site.

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