HB 09 – Campaign Finance Reporting needs to be amended or killed. This bill in its original form was a good government piece that limited individual and PAC contributions to candidates. It has been amended to allow higher contributions that in past years, which is opposite of its original intent.

Please contact your state Senator and ask them either to reduce the limits or kill the bill.

Today’s Action

Today was a day of amendments… The House Education Committee amended SF 22 to build two schools, one in Goshen County and one in East Laramie County that were not previously on this biennium’s list proposed by the School Facilities Commission. Both of these projects had been approved by previous legislatures, but had not been built. Unfortunately, the passage of this amendment pushes a couple of projects off the list and they will have to be addressed in the next biennium.

Additionally, SF 71 was amended to clarify language around the science portion of the success curriculum. This would allow a physical science course that is taught to 9^th graders in several school districts to count toward the science requirement for the scholarship.

Both of these amendments have a long way to go in order to become law. They will have to survive three readings of the bill on the floor of the House without being amended out. Additionally, because these two bills will likely be different than the ones that the Senate passed, a conference committee will be assigned that will address the differences between the bills each body passed.

Tomorrow’s (Thursday) Committee Action of Interest

House Appropriations will meet at 7 a.m. in room 204

SF0053ENG Common school reserve account funding.

House Agriculture will meet at 8 a.m. in H 11

SF0058ENG State trust land management account.

Senate Revenue will meet immediately upon Noon Recess in S16

HB0092ENG Property tax refund program.

HB0151ENG Tax relief program amendments.

HB0107 Property tax relief-2.

Bills WEA will be working this year

Daily Bill Status Report

Please watch for positions that change throughout the session. Most of these changes are due to amendments to bills.

Number Link to Introduced version	Bill Title	Link to Amendments	Explanation of the Bill	WEA' Position	Bill Status
HB0003	Campaign finance reporting-electronic filing.	Yes	Changes campaign finance reports to an electronic form that would be posted online and would be searchable. Allows for only electronic filing	Support	S Rereferred to S02
HB0009	Campaign finance reporting.	Yes	Limits Political Action Committee contributions to $3,500 per individual for legislative races and $7000 for statewide candidates per election. A very blatant abuse of the current law lead to this change	OPPOSE	S Passed 2nd Reading
HB0017	Community college commission-duties.	Yes	Implements some of the recommendations from the Governor's Blue Ribbon Panel on Community Colleges. Our only concern is that it allows the Community College Commission the ability to cancel programs at community colleges due to low enrollment.	Support	S Placed on General File
HB0025	School building plan review exception.		It just cleans up the language and allows districts to contract for building plan reviews. In practice, I believe that districts already do this, so I do not think it changes practice.	Watch	Assigned Number HEA0004
HB0054	Natural gas valuation.		Provides a fairer tax system for sour gas of which funding goes to the school foundation account.	Support	S Passed CoW
HB0077	Tuition-dependents of disabled firefighters and EMTs-2.		Allows children of disabled firefighters to go to college tuition free	Support	S Passed CoW
HB0081	Community colleges-capital construction.		loosens regulations on legislative approval of construction projects from everything over $50,000, to everything over $100,000	Watch	S Passed 2nd Reading
HB0113	School finance-minimum teacher resources.		Clarifies funding for extremely small schools granting them additional funding for the last two years and then clarifying the language so that it does not continue in the future.	Watch	S Rereferred to S02
HB0134	School district immunity and liability insurance.		WEA Continues to research this bill		S Placed on General File
SF0009	State retirement-board immunity.	Yes	This bill protects the members of the retirement board from legal action.	Support	S Did Not Concur 0-30-0-0-0
SF0017	School facilities-infrastructure costs.	Yes	I see red flags that would require the SFC to choose cheapest option available in every situation. The recent Supreme Court Decision speaks to this specifically	Oppose	Assigned Number SEA0004
SF0021	Hathaway scholarship program.	Yes	Provides student who lose their scholarship due to low GPW with an opportunity to earn it back if they bring up their GPA while they pay their own tuition.	Support	H Passed CoW
SF0022	School facilities-amendments.	Yes	Basically it is clean up language. It does stipulate that a school building cannot be demolished without a public meeting.	Support	H Introduced and Referred to H04
SF0029	Public library endowment challenge program.	Yes	Provides public libraries an opportunity to raise funds through a matching endowment program. This bill would allow donations of $10,000 to be matched by another $10,000 from the state.	Support	H Introduced and Referred to H04
SF0053	Common school reserve account funding.	Yes	This is a great bill - After Hathaway is full, this bill take the funding that was previously going to Hathaway and puts it in the common school trust land account.	Support	H Introduced and Referred to H02
SF0058	State trust land management account.	Yes	One percent of the School Trust funding can be used by the state lands office to better state lands	Support	H Introduced and Referred to H05
SF0070	School finance-amendments.	Yes	The WEA supports all portions of this omnibus bill	Support	H Received for Introduction
SF0071	Hathaway scholarship program-success curriculum.		Expands the foreign language of the Success Curriculum to include Sign Language	Support	S Passed 2nd Reading
SF0083	Retirement-rehired retirees.		Provides clarifying language to the current rehired retiree law.	Support	S Passed 2nd Reading

In addition to the bills in the chart above, WEA is opposed to a multitude of bills that put education funding in danger including those that put caps on or reduce property taxes.