Education Conference Committee Begins
Today marks two significant milestones in the 91st Legislative Session. The first is the education conference committee will meet this afternoon (see details below) to begin comparing and addressing both the House and Senate education omnibus bills. Second, the most awaited and important news of the day will be if leadership meets today's self-imposed deadline to announce global budget targets.
Social media has been quite active with posts and tweets showing vastly different budget numbers between the House and Senate. Now would be a great time to make one last push for budgets and policy items that are important to your district. A quick and easy way to get messages to legislators is to watch MSBA's and other education organizations' Twitter feeds and retweet messages. We will tag legislators and if you comment or retweet, they will get the message.
Several documents were released over the weekend and allow you to see the fiscal impact to both proposed budgets.
Please take a look at how proposed funding impacts your district and contact the conferees with a message.
"Hello, My name is (full name) and I'm a school board member from (school district name). I am calling to ask you to support three things during conference committee:
- 3% and 2% on the general education formula
- Stop the growth in special education
- Keep schools safe by providing funding for staff and facilities.
Thank you for your time and consideration."
The House conferees are:
Rep. Jim Davnie (chair), DFL-Minneapolis
Rep. Cheryl Youakim, DFL-Hopkins
Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul
Rep. Julie Sandstede, DFL-Hibbing
Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City
The Senate conferees are:
Sen. Carla Nelson (chair), R-Rochester
Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne
Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault
Sen. Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids
Sen. Charles Wiger, DFL-Maplewood
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