Good news!  During a SEE Capitol visit, we met with Fridley's Representative Connie Bernardy (DFL - New Brighton), who serves on the Legislative Audit Commission (LAC).  In our meeting with her, we discussed the need for increased equalization aid to make school levies more affordable in low-property wealth districts. In the next LAC meeting, she suggested that equalization be added to the topics that the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) would evaluate for effectiveness in the coming year. We want to thank all SEE members who responded to the action alert from SEE by contacting their legislators.  The equalization program received enough votes and will be evaluated by the OLA.  An evaluation report with recommendations should be available prior to the 2019 budget session.  OLA reports are taken seriously by most legislators.  We anticipate that the OLA equalization report will be a valuable tool to support legislative action to increase equalization next session. 

As always, see Brad's Blog for more detailed information on what is happening at the Capitol.   

The Senate education policy committee processed its bill on Thursday. More information on the policy bills is available  here on the SEE website.  I will add a side-by-side summary that compares the House, Senate and Governor's policy provisions next week. We commend the governor and the committee chairs in the House and Senate for producing restrained bills, limiting policy provisions that usually end up becoming unfunded mandates to some degree. 

Both the Senate and the House education policy bills include some similar provisions.  I will discuss a few below.