The 2008 General Assembly is now in session
Week 2 Update—January 18, 2008
The 2008 General Assembly session began Wednesday, January 9, 2008. The session runs 60 days and is scheduled to end on March 8, 2008. “Cross-over day,” the last day for each house to act on its own bills, is February 12. House and Senate versions of the two-year budget for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 will be released on February 17.
The House Education Committee is scheduled to meet on Mondays at 9:00 a.m. in House Room C and Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. in the Appropriations Room. The Senate Education and Health Committee will meet on Thursdays at 8:30 a.m. in Senate Room B. Sub-committees will meet periodically throughout the session. Click here for a schedule of weekly meetings.
New budget to be shaped
State lawmakers will be focusing much of their attention this session on crafting the next biennial budget, and they’ll be tackling that challenge under a cloud of continuing economic woes at both the national and state levels. Last week, Kaine administration officials delivered more sobering news: a December state revenue report that showed declines in three substantial sources of tax collections. Nonwithholding income tax, corporate taxes and recordation taxes all dropped by more than 20% below the December 2006 collection level. Income tax withholding, however, was up just over eight percent last month. Still to be calculated are sales tax figures from the holiday shopping season, which will be reflected in the report on January revenues, which will be presented to legislators in mid-February, at which time there could be a reforecast of growth for all state revenues.
House and Senate leaders have taken an unprecedented step to appoint members of the budget conference committee weeks before differences in their chamber’s version of the budget is known. House Speaker William Howell and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Colgan say it will get budget writers more time to prepare for their discussions and negotiations. The House budget conferees are Delegates Putney, Hamilton, Cox, Joannou, Sherwood and Hogan, while the Senate conferees are Senators Colgan, Houck, Howell, Wampler and Stosch. Budget amendments submitted by legislators by this past Thursday’s deadline are expected to be available mid-week.
Recall that the introduced budget for the next biennium contains more than $1 billion more for public education over the two-year period, much of which ($890 million) is to update state costs of the Standards of Quality (SOQ).
Click here for additional information about Governor Kaine's proposed education budget for 2008-2010.
Education Legislation
The House of Delegates has approved HB 246, which requires the Board of Education to develop a database of local school divisions' best practices regarding nutrition and physical education, including results of wellness-related fitness assessments. A companion Senate measure, SB 61, has passed the Senate. A related, but more controversial bill, HB 242, would require that students in grades K-12 receive 150 minutes of physical education or extracurricular activity per week, effective with the 2013-2014 school year. It is in the House Education Committee. On Monday, House Education will take up bills that call for 65% of school division operating budgets to be spent on instructional services (HB 60), that would remove the requirement that principals, assistant principals and superintendents be licensed (HB 613), and that would require school divisions’ unexpended funds to stay with the schools, rather than revert to the local governing body (HB 449). A subcommittee has recommended that all three of those bills be defeated.
Meanwhile, the Senate Education and Health Committee has referred a couple of significant measures to the Finance Committee. They are SB 267, which would require the average teacher salary in Virginia to be no less than the national average, and SB 408 which raises the maximum limit for any Literary Fund loan from $7.5 million to $14 million.
Here are more education-related bills that have been submitted so far:
HB 1135 Requires school board policies that ensure the school division does not discriminate against a student's publicly stated voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint.
HB 1164 Creates income tax credits for business entities and individual taxpayers who make contributions to eligible public school foundations.
HB 1165 Expands the Teaching Scholarship Loan program to include teacher candidates pursuing an endorsement in a math or science discipline.
HB 1216 Requires school boards to ensure that all school teachers are provided at least three hours a week of unencumbered, self-directed planning time.
HB 1425 Requires the Board of Education to develop a plan for the withdrawal from the federal No Child Left Behind Act, unless waivers that allow Virginia's existing accountability system to substantially meet the requirements of the Act are granted by the U.S. Department of Education.
SB 537 Requires school boards to develop policies specifying the criteria and procedures for changing any grade given to a student.
SB 640 Adds mental health education and awareness to the list of topics to be covered in family life education curricula.
SB 721 Requires the Board of Education to promulgate regulations setting nutritional guidelines for all competitive foods sold during the school day.
HJR 85 Directs JLARC to study implications of granting fiscal autonomy to elected school boards (also HJR 175 and SJR 66).
HJR 90 Continues the math, science and technology commission to focus on innovative ways to interest students at all education levels in the disciplines.
HJR 161 Establishes a joint subcommittee to study establishing a merit pay and bonus system for public school teachers.
SJR 25 Recognizes the problems with and implications of the "65 Percent Solution," a proposal to urge states to amend their laws to require that at least 65 percent of the operating budget for public schools be spent on classroom expenses.
SJR 61 Establishes a joint subcommittee to study ways to promote and ensure early reading proficiency and comprehension among third graders in public schools.
SJR 68 Establishes a joint subcommittee to study the level of state assistance to localities to assist with financing land acquisition, and the construction and renovation of school facilities.
SJR 79 Establishes a joint subcommittee to study the feasibility of creating a dedicated revenue stream for teacher salaries.
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