Don't Trust Rumors

I said in a recent post that partisan elections of State School Board members would not be brought up. I was wrong. SB224 is called Partisan School Board Elections. It is scheduled for a committee hearing this afternoon. Judging from the reception to the bill calling for non-partisan election of State School Board members, it is probably headed to easy passage -- unless enough voters contact their senators and representatives and talk them out of voting for it. A poll conducted last fall showed that the majority of Utahns believed that education is best served when partisan politics are kept away.

Get an answering machine

I wrote about SB142 in an earlier post. It requires all elected officials to have their direct contact information available to the public. It affects public schools particularly because members of School Community Councils are elected officials. It has now passed the Senate and the House and is on its way to the Governor's office for his signature.

It was amended along the way to say that email addresses and phone numbers must be posted online “if available”. That means that members of Community Councils who don’t have a computer and therefore no direct email availability, aren’t required to get a computer with internet access in order to serve – same with a phone.

The other thing I think of with regard to this bill is the amendment that added the word "directly". This means that if you want to contact the Governor, you should be able to call a phone number that goes to him directly. Will his secretary or intern answer the phone? Will this be considered direct? If it is allowed, it will definitely be a disadvantage to School Community Council members that they do not have personal secretaries or interns.

I would feel better if the posted contact information were only available to their constituents, for example through password-protected PowerSchool, but I am not certain that this would satisfy the new law.

Holding the Reins of Education

The Senate debated SJR9, the resolution that would amend the State Constitution so that education, K-12 and higher education (UVU, MATC, U of U, etc.), would become a department in the Governor’s administration, subject to the rules made by the legislature, instead of being controlled by the elected State Board of Education. The resolution passed the Senate with a two-thirds majority and will now be sent to the House. If it passes the House with a two-thirds majority, it will be on the November ballot in 2012, when voters can decide whether to amend the State Constitution this way. As rigorous as this may seem, remember that last November every Constitution amendment question on the ballot was approved by the voters.

There is another resolution removing control from the State Board of Education, as is currently a provision in the State Constitution. SJR1 would have put the control of education strictly in the hands of the legislature. While SJR9 is moving forward, the sponsor of SJR1 is dropping his resolution in favor of SJR9.

Those who are guarding the interest of the School Trust Lands have a concern about this resolution. The management of the School Trust (SITLA) is a department under the office of the Governor. Public education is the beneficiary of the Trust. It is bad fiduciary policy for the manager of a trust to be the same person as the beneficiary.

In regard to the election of members to the State Board of Education, the excitement to make the elections partisan seems to be cooling and I believe it is because it could be found unconstitutional. The State Constitution prohibits partisan qualifications for employment by the public schools. Since the Board members are paid to serve, they are considered employees. There is still a bill calling for partisan elections but I have heard rumors that it may be abandoned.

Spring Ahead, Fall Behind

If you are bugged by the changes on and off of Daylight Savings time each year, Representative Wilcox has drafted a bill you will like. It calls for Utah to discontinue the time changes for Daylight Savings Time and just stay with Mountain Standard Time all year long.

Daylight Savings Time has never made sense to me. I won't miss it if it goes away. It will still be a problem to keep track of the other states who use it but at least it won't disturb my sleep patterns.

I can’t predict how this bill will be received; it doesn't look like it is moving right now. I’ll be sure to let you know before the next time change!

Update on OEK

The Provo School District has been offering Optional Extended-day Kindergarten (OEK) at some schools for children who need help getting prepared for mainstream first grade. The results of this program has been very positive; however, funding for this program has run out so if it would be continued, the legislature would have to include it as a new item in the budget.

Currently, the proposal we are hearing is to allow districts to apply for Early Intervention Block Grants, which could be used for OEK, if that is how the district wants to use it. That may be a good way to fund it. The size of the grants will determine whether it is adequate.

Budget Forecast

A long-awaited report came to the Legislature this morning. As legislators were asked to make appropriations in this first half of the session, they made them with no information about how much money would be available. Meanwhile, state financial officers have been gathering data from all kinds of indicators in order to make their best guesses, called “revenue projections”. Everyone was watching for the revenue projections to give a better idea about how much tax money could be appropriated to government services. Those numbers came out today.

There are two sets of numbers. One set is one-time money. I am no expert but I believe that this is from Federal or other sources that can only be counted on one year at a time. The other is on-going funds based on income taxes or fees that will stay in place. Both sets of numbers show that the economy is recovering slowly but surely. There are more people employed and more taxes are being paid to cover the costs of government.

This is good news for public education and Medicaid. The Medicaid dollars go a long way to address medical needs of the most vulnerable people of the state. Each dollar spent by the state is matched two or three times in federal funding but the budget cuts have made even that commitment difficult.

Public Education won’t be asked to take cuts as deep as what we may otherwise seen. Still, it was pointed out, we have been falling behind for the past couple of years so it will take more than a small increase to get us to where we would like to be. And a small increase is what we have.

Student population growth has not been funded in the past two years and catching up will be very difficult. The Public Education appropriations committee claimed to have funded growth in the base budget but they were playing something of a shell game, moving funds from one education basket to another and calling it money for new student growth. Representative Mel Brown announced today that paying for growth would cost $60-million more than even the added revenue projections can cover. We are hearing that in order to pay for new student growth with new dollars, legislators would have to short some other areas of government, areas that are also feeling squeezed.

At least now, the legislators can now begin to divide the expected revenue more realistically.