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LEGISLATURE GOES ON SPRING BREAK
The legislature will take a one-week break beginning
on March 15 and will return to session on Monday, March 26.
MNEA’s Capitol Action Days will take a break for the
legislative spring break next week and following week and
start again on April 3.
TAX
CREDIT VOUCHER BILL PASSES SENATE COMMITTEE
Following closely on the House defeat of House Bill 808 (Carl
Bearden) on March 7, the Senate Pensions Committee heard the
companion bill, Senate Bill 698 (Luann Ridgeway), on March
14. The bill allows up to $40 million per year in tax credits
for “contributions” to scholarship funds to be
used to fund private and religious school tuition payments
for low-income students in St. Louis City and Kansas City.
Following
the hearing, the committee voted out a Senate Committee Substitute
version of the bill on a party-line vote. The bill will face
considerable opposition in the Senate and is not expected
to reach a vote, but Sen. Charlie Shields, the Senate Majority
Floor Leader, is expected to at least give the bill some floor
time for discussion.
Missouri
NEA strongly opposes S.B. 698 and any measure to transfer
state funds to private, religious or home schools that are
not accountable to all the standards placed on public schools.
MNEA appreciates the continuing effort by members in opposing
passage of the bill.
SUBSTANTIVE
DUE PROCESS
The Senate Education Committee heard Senate Bill 561 (Kevin
Engler) on March 14. S.B. 561 establishes substantive due
process for tenured teachers. Missouri NEA requested the legislation
and strongly supports the bill. Substantive due process takes
the politics out of the tenure process by allowing either
a teacher or school board to ask for a preliminary hearing
by an impartial hearing officer on a teacher’s status,
rather than a politically-charged hearing before the school
board. The impartial hearing serves to relieve school boards
from having to deal directly with controversial employment
cases, protects successful teachers from arbitrary dismissal,
requires administrators to adequately document cases for termination
of tenured teachers and provides a professional, non-political
process for removing teachers who do not meet district expectations
from the classroom.
MOHELA
BILL FUTURE UNCLEAR
The Senate debated Senate Substitute #3/Senate Committee Substitute/Senate
Bill 389 (Gary Nodler) at great length, on March 12-13. No
deal has been struck on the list of projects to be funded.
The bill will not be taken up again until after spring break,
if at all. The bill makes several changes relating to higher
education, including language relating to the sale of assets
of the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority and providing
funds to higher education institutions for capital projects.
Missouri NEA continues to have strong concerns regarding the
impact of the tuition caps on the quality of programs and
the effect of the MOHELA asset sale on the ability of that
entity to fulfill its core mission of providing financial
assistance to Missouri students.
SENATE
COMMITTEE HEARS HOUSE PENSION TAX CUT BILL
The Senate Ways and Means Committee heard House Committee
Substitute/House Bill 444 et al. on March 12. The fiscal note
for the perfected HCS shows that, after adoption of several
amendments to exempt more pension income, the bill now has
an estimated cost, under a revised fiscal note, of about $300
million in 2008, considerably higher than either the original
bill or the committee version.
The bill
exempts all Social Security pensions from income tax, along
with other public employee pensions not eligible for Social
Security, such as PSRS, and up to $6,000 in income from individual
retirement accounts. The fiscal impact will increase rapidly
over time as Baby Boomers reach retirement age.
Passage
of the House version of the bill would spell imminent budget
disaster for the state. While the state is likely to have
a significant ending balance of roughly $500 million this
fiscal year (F.Y. 07), reasonable revenue and budget assumptions
indicate that H.B. 444 would eliminate that balance within
12 months (by the end of F.Y. 08) and leave the state with
a $450 million shortfall in the following budget year (F.Y.
09). Missouri NEA continues to oppose HCS/H.B. 444, due to
the generally regressive nature of the tax changes and enormous
harm the bill will due to adequacy of state revenues.
Senate
appropriations staff calculated that, even without passage
of tax cuts, the state budget will be spending down the balance
at the rate of about $215 million per year. The House version
of H.B. 444 would cause the state to deficit spend at the
rate of $500 million per year, leading to flaming budget death
within 12 months and massive withholdings in the following
year, just before the 2008 election. Recognizing this obvious
problem, Rep. Rodney Jetton asked that his bill be scaled
back to just exempt Social Security and other non-Social Security
pension income, such as PSRS income, producing a $135 million
per year cost. Such a change would still leave the state spending
down balances at $350 million per year and still lead to deficits
and withholding in F.Y. 2009.
Senate
leaders appear to be considering two options: 1) no tax cut
at all or 2) passing a tax cut exempting only Social Security
income and non-SS pensions such as PSRS (with an overall cost
of about $120 million per year or less), with some or all
of the following features: an eligible income cap of around
$75,000, a six-year phase-in period and annual general revenue
growth targets.
SENATE
PASSES SCHOOL VISION SCREENING BILL
The Senate passed Senate Committee Substitute/Senate Bill
16 (Delbert Scott) on March 12. The bill requires that each
child enrolled in kindergarten or first grade shall receive
a comprehensive vision examination. Missouri NEA opposes the
current language of the bill. MNEA supports the objective
of ensuring that all students have a vision screening and
all vision problems are diagnosed and treated as early as
possible. The committee substitute allows parents to “opt”
their students out of the vision exam. A concern remains that
needy children may be opted out and remain unserved and, thus,
struggle in school with impaired vision while school staff
are busy dealing with paperwork to ensure that other students
have had the eye exams. Proper vision correction is essential
to learning to read and ultimately to school success. Testimony
indicated that current vision screenings work well but could
benefit from further investment in training and education.
MNEA believes the state should invest funds to ensure that
all beginning students are in school and ready to learn and
that needy students get the vision exams and eyeglasses they
need to see properly in school and learn to read. The bill’s
fiscal note indicates that about $500,000 would cover the
uninsured costs of the comprehensive vision exams.
SENATE
PASSES SCHOOL START DATE BILL
The Senate passed Senate Committee Substitute/Senate Bill
64 (Jack Goodman) on March 12. The bill relates to school
start date and snow days. The bill requires a school district
to hold a hearing prior to adopting a school start date more
than 10 calendar days before Labor Day. In making up inclement
weather days this year, the bill allows districts to meet
the minimum school term requirement by scheduling either 174
school days or by scheduling longer school days and satisfying
a 1080 school hour requirement instead.
WATCH
OUT FOR FALLING REVENUES:
HOUSE PASSES REPEAL OF CORPORATE FRANCHISE TAX
The House passed House Bill 458 (Mike Sutherland) on March
15 by a vote of 107-46. The bill would eliminate the corporate
franchise tax over a five-year period. Missouri NEA opposes
H.B. 458 because the bill will significantly reduce state
General Revenue and because corporations, like individuals,
benefit from public services in Missouri and public investment
in Missouri and should be expected to contribute, based on
their ability to pay, to support those services. Estimates
of corporate franchise tax have become less clear due to weakened
state reporting requirements that allow some mixing of reporting
of corporate franchise and income taxes, but the fiscal note
indicates a net loss of about $117 million per year for the
fifth year and thereafter. This G.R. cut will force the state
to reduce investment in education and other vital public services.
SENATE
COMMITTEE HEARS ACCOUNTABILITY DODGE
The Senate Judiciary Committee heard House Joint Resolution
1 (Jane Cunningham) on March 12. The Joint Resolution, if
passed by both chambers and approved by statewide vote, would
prohibit a state court from instructing or ordering the state
legislature or any local government to levy or increase taxes.
The amendment would also prohibit any Missouri court from
instructing or ordering the state or any local government
on how to spend, allocate or budget fiscal resources.
State
and federal law already holds school districts, teachers and
other school personnel accountable for closing achievement
gaps and improving student performance, but the legislature
also has a responsibility to provide adequate revenues so
teachers and other school personnel have the tools and resources
to get the job done. The HJR is an obvious attempt to avoid
accountability for the failure to meet the constitutional
demand to adequately and equitably fund public education.
Missouri NEA strongly opposes HJR 1.
Missouri
clearly now suffers from a failed tax and revenue policy.
By continuing to pursue a strong, anti-tax policy, Missouri
lacks the resources to make the public investment Missourians
expect and which the Constitution demands. This policy, as
evidenced by the many tax cut bills passed by or under consideration
in the House, will permanently cripple the funding of K-12
and higher education, health care and other state-supported
services and sentence Missouri to permanent, bottom-tier status
in the nation.
HJR 1
would undermine the fundamental balance of governmental powers
and leave the people of Missouri with no legal recourse to
hold the legislature accountable for failure to live up to
its Constitutional obligations. Moreover, the HJR would attempt
to interfere with the Supreme Court’s authority to provide
appropriate remedies in all cases dealing with improper levying
of state and local taxation.
SENATE
EDUCATION
The Senate Education Committee met March 14 to hear three
other bills:
- Senate
Bill 513 (Dan Clemens) allows nurses working in any area
of need to qualify for the Professional and Practical Nursing
Student Loan Program. The committee voted the bill “do
pass” as a Consent Bill.
- S.B.
539 (Jolie Justus) revises requirements for anti-bullying
policies of local school districts. Missouri NEA supported
the bill as a real effort to reform the problematic language
enacted in S.B. 894 (2006) and establish real processes
to deal with bullying in schools.
- S.B.
564 (Jeff Smith) revises the list of entities that may sponsor
a charter school. The bill expands sponsorship by private
colleges from those in St. Louis City to include those in
St. Louis County. All such college sponsors must have a
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education-approved
teacher preparation program on the campus. Also, the bill
allows the mayor of St. Louis to sponsor charter schools
in St. Louis City and provides that St. Louis charter schools
may be “workplace” charter schools. Missouri
NEA is concerned that the bill does not currently require
the mayor to demonstrate the technical capacity to serve
as a charter school sponsor, including full-time professional
staff with expertise in finance, instruction, facilities,
assessment and other key areas.
HOUSE
ADOPTS, RECONSIDERS LANGUAGE ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN
The House took up House Committee Substitute/House Bill 469
(Maynard Wallace) on March 13. The bill extends employee immunity
to all school board policies, not just the discipline policy.
Also, the bill broadens the reporting of acts of school violence
under the Safe Schools Act and allows school boards to commission
certified law enforcement officers to stop, detain and arrest
persons for local violations and certain crimes committed
on school premises, at school activities or on buses. MNEA
supports the HCS version of the bill. Rep. Rachel Bringer
offered House Amendment 1 which establishes transferability
of teacher background checks for one year. The House adopted
the amendment.
Rep. Brian
Baker then offered House Amendment 2 which was adopted by
a voice vote with little discussion. H.A. 2 contained a broadly
worded statement banning “legal, political and administrative
intimidation, harassment or constraint” in public education
and exempting all teachers from disciplinary action for using
a “critical analysis” in teaching. The latter
language coincides with the language employed across the nation
in bills requiring teaching of intelligent design, the upgraded
language now used in place of the older term, creationism.
Once House members discussed this language more thoroughly,
it became clear that the overall vote on the bill would be
regarded by many as a test vote on intelligent design, since
the amendment was adopted hastily without a roll-call vote.
Rather than force House members to cast a vote on such an
issue, Rep. Baker moved to reconsider the approval of H.A.
2, and the House overwhelmingly approved his motion. Rep.
Baker then withdrew H.A. 2 and the House perfected the bill
in that form, without the language regarding critical analysis.
The House passed the bill on Third Reading on March 15.
EARLY
CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FUNDS AT RISK
The House Special Committee on Veterans met on March 13 to
hear House Bill 717 (David Day). The bill would eliminate
allocation of excess state gaming admission fee moneys to
early childhood education including the funding for the Missouri
Preschool Project. Rep. Day offered a proposed House Committee
Substitute that would phase in a $15 million cut to early
childhood education funding over a three-year period. Missouri
NEA strongly opposes any reduction to funding for early childhood
education. MNEA noted that the state is actually moving to
increase its commitment to early childhood education with
the passage of state standards for quality early childhood
education and the current proposals to establish quality ratings
systems for early childcare. However, the committee voted
a HCS version of the bill out “do pass,” following
the hearing.
HOUSE
ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
The House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee met
on March 14 to hear three bills:
- House
Bill 580 (Gayle Kingery) allows school districts to establish
an extended-day, four-day school week on a majority vote
of the school board. In the absence of a bargaining law
for school staff, the bill will need to clarify that staff
who work a full week during those four days will not be
required or expected to work the fifth day of the work week
without extra pay.
- H.B.
425 (David Pearce) allows school districts to provide transportation
under certain circumstances for resident students who do
not attend the district's public schools. MNEA continues
to have concerns that the bill will cause many districts
to become entangled in providing services to some, but not
all, private or parochial students in a district and may
lead to legal action against districts for failure to treat
all eligible students in the same way, since only extra
seat space may be used.
- H.B.
824 (Scott Muschany) revises school emergency procedures
to clarify that references to disaster or emergency may
include pandemic disease. The bill requires emergency planning
and requires the plan to address continued school services
when person-to-person contact is limited. Missouri NEA supports
the bill.
Also,
the committee voted out H.B. 35 (Jane Cunningham) requiring
students to provide written permission from their parent or
legal guardian in order to participate in school extracurricular
activities.
HOUSE
SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
The House Special Committee on Student Achievement met on
March 14 to hear House Bill 689 (Brian Baker). The bill requires
the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to create
mentoring standards for beginning teachers and principals.
Missouri NEA supports the bill and urges the legislature to
also enact state teaching standards, so state policy is clear
on what teachers are supposed to know and be able to do, how
those standards will be assessed and how mentoring, beginning
teacher assistance programs and other professional development
will help teachers meet those teaching standards. The committee
voted the bill out “do pass.”
The committee
also voted out a House Committee Substitute version of H.B.
214 (Jane Cunningham). HCS/H.B. 214 creates the Teacher Choice
Compensation Package which makes extra salary stipends available
to teachers who forego tenure and meet criteria based primarily
on student test scores. Missouri NEA opposes the bill as another
divisive form of merit pay that undermines best practices
in comprehensive performance-based teaching evaluations and
fails to provide respect and security to teachers by conditioning
extra pay on giving up teacher tenure. The HCS removes the
funding source for the bill from extra gambling boat admissions
fees.
HOUSE
HIGHER EDUCATION
The House Higher Education Committee met on March 13 to hear
two bills:
- House
Bill 532 (Nathan Cooper) requires students entering public
higher education institutions to take American history and
American literature courses in order to graduate.
- H.B.
249 (Danielle Moore) establishes the Missouri Senior Cadets
Program.
CAPITOL
ACTION DAYS
MNEA’s Capitol Action Days continued this week, and
about 20 MNEA members from Governance District 7 made the
trip to the Capitol. Capitol Action Days will take a break
for the next two weeks and return on April 3. Capitol Action
Days are a great chance to meet with legislators and discuss
Missouri NEA’s priority issues and how to support great
public schools for every child.
Capitol
Action Days will be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays continuing
through the first week of May. Your MNEA calendar includes
the dates that members of the MNEA Board of Directors selected
for your governance district.
As your
Capitol Action Day approaches, please contact Otto Fajen (otto.fajen@mnea.org)
by the preceding evening to confirm your plan to attend. If
your travel plans change and you are not able to attend on
your designated day, please call and speak to Judy Glover
at 1-800-392-0236 by no later than 9:00 a.m. of the designated
day to let us know of the change. Feel free to contact Otto
Fajen by email to arrange to attend a different Capitol Action
Day.
Each Capitol
Action Day will start with a briefing at 10:00 a.m. to provide
you with the most up-to-date information. Participants should
meet MNEA Government Relations staff at the Capitol on the
second floor near the rotunda in the Senate side alcove under
the grand staircase.
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