The Legislature finished first reading of the budget for most of the day. Amendments are not allowed during first reading, so today could be the calm before the storm. The WEA partnered with the Wyoming Parent Teacher Association and the State Lands office to provide lunch for legislators. At this lunch we explained the purpose and importance of School Trust Lands and how they fit into school funding. This event was well attended and provided a great opportunity to catch up with legislators.

Senate File 97 died this morning in the Senate Appropriations Committee. This is great news for public education. The bill would have taken funding from the school foundation account and put it toward municipalities. Please send an email to the members thanking them for their action. Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee and their email addresses are below.

Rae Lynn Job	rjob@wyoming.com
Curt Meier	cmeier@wyoming.com
Phil Nicholas	nicholas@wyolegal.com
Ray Peterson	rpeterson@wyoming.com
C.L. "Chuck" Townsend	ctown@wyoming.com

Please watch for email action alerts for the rest of the week. If budget amendments come forward we will be asking for members’ help in killing them.

Tomorrow’s (Wednesday) Committee Action of interest

House Education Committee will meet Upon Adjournment in room H10

HB0134 School district immunity and liability insurance.

SF0061 School finance-recapture payments.

Bills WEA will be working this year

Please watch for positions that change throughout the session. Most of these changes are due to amendments to bills. House Bill 09 is a prime example as the thresholds have changed.

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	H Passed CoW
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	H Passed 3rd Reading 58-2-0-0-0
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	H Passed CoW
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	H Passed CoW
HB0054	Natural gas valuation.		Provides a fairer tax system for sour gas of which funding goes to the school foundation account.	Support	S Introduced and Referred to S03
HB0077	Tuition-dependents of disabled firefighters and EMTs-2.		Allows children of disabled firefighters to go to college tuition free	Support	H Introduced and Referred to H04 50-10-0-0-0
HB0081	Community colleges-capital construction.		loosens regulations on legislative approval of construction projects from everything over $50,000, to everything over $100,000	Watch	H Passed CoW
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	H Placed on General File
HB0134	School district immunity and liability insurance.		WEA Continues to research this bill		H Introduced and Referred to H04 52-7-1-0-0
SF0009	State retirement-board immunity.	Yes	This bill protects the members of the retirement board from legal action.	Support	H Received for Introduction
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	S Passed 3rd Reading 28-2-0-0-0
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	S Passed 2nd Reading
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	S Passed 3rd Reading 21-9-0-0-0
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	S Placed on General File
SF0045	School districts-payment of employee association dues.	Yes	Does not allow school districts to pay dues to professional organizations including WEA	Oppose	S Passed 2nd Reading
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	S Passed 3rd Reading 29-1-0-0-0
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	S Placed on General File
SF0060	Community college certificates.		Allows more flexibility for community colleges. Any program for a certificate that was under 30 hours would no longer have to go through the Community College Commission for approval.	Watch	S Introduced and Referred to S04 23-7-0-0-0
SF0070	School finance-amendments.	Yes	The WEA supports all portions of this omnibus bill	Support	S Placed on General File
SF0071	Hathaway scholarship program-success curriculum.		Expands the foreign language of the Success Curriculum to include Sign Language	Support	S Placed on General File
SF0082	Community colleges-capital construction-2.		Provides funding for construction projects at North West College, Casper College and Central Wyoming College		S Received for Introduction
SF0083	Retirement-rehired retirees.		Provides clarifying language to the current rehired retiree law.	Support	S Placed on General File
SF0097	Government royalty revenue-distribution-2.		Takes funding from School foundation account and puts it toward cities towns and counties.	Oppose	S Introduced and Referred to Senate Appropriations 02 21-9-0-

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.