Yesterday marked the first day of the 2018 legislative session. Legislators began their work on tax conformity, K-12 education and other areas. There is a great deal to accomplish in the next 13 weeks in order to finish by the constitutional end date of May 21.
In a rather surprising move, within moments of the start of session, both the House and Senate formed a conference committee and appointed conferees for H.F. 947, an education bill from last session
dealing with the general education aid calculation. There were additional budget area conference committees and conferees formed and appointed as well. The issue of restoring House and Senate funding is yet to be addressed.
We hope to keep you informed each week through the Weekly Advocate, which will be published every Monday. Each update will have bill introductions, updates on committee hearings and other relevant topics. Please encourage your colleagues to
sign up for the Weekly Advocate.
The House Innovation Policy Committee will meet at 8:15 a.m. Thursday and House Education Finance will meet at 1:00 p.m.
The Senate E-12 Finance will have a hearing on telecommunication aid Monday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. MSBA has worked diligently with Education Superhighway and the Minnesota K-12 Connect Forward Initiative (Governor Dayton, Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED)) on this issue for the past two years to bring access to scalable infrastructure, high-speed affordable internet.
You can track what is happening at the Capitol each week with the
weekly calendar and
watch hearings of interest online.
House Session Daily also provides an excellent daily recap.
|
