Volume 40 | April 29, 2022
Coalition news & updates
Hello All,

Happy Friday (or hopefully Monday when you get back from a relaxing weekend!)

Below you'll find:

  1. Updated Legislative Topics from our Spring Convening (these were also emailed last week on April 21st)
  2. Updated Interim Hearing Schedule
  3. Interim Hearing Summaries

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Julia
Update 88th Legislative Topics
Thank you again for the time you spent discussing our legislative topics and give your candid feedback during the BCEC Convening on April 5th. 

I'd love your feedback over the direction of the updated legislative topics. There are two ways to share feedback (in addition to responding to the email sent on April 21st): 

  1. Share suggested edits on this google doc 
  2. Share feedback on this google form

We will also be discussing these updated topics during our upcoming Legislative Action Committee on May 2nd at 11am. All are welcome to join that discussion as well, if you are not on the committee but would like to join the meeting, please let me know if you would like me to send you the meeting request - or click this link at the time of the meeting.

For those that were not able to attend the convening or for those that need a review of what was discussed two weeks ago, here are the changes that were made: 

  •  The first legislative topic (originally focused on student-based allotments) has been broadened to include the basic allotment and inflation - 
  1. This was a bullet that received the most votes from participants with 10 votes 
  2. Participants viewed the bullet as needing to encompass the impacts of COVID but also the impacts of increasing cost of running schools (salaries, facilities, etc) 

  • As the discussion continued, the concept of adding a bullet specifically to address funding during natural disasters and public health emergencies was raised and participants stated it should be added. This went beyond just attendance funding, but also included the cost of operating shelters, repairs buildings immediately, without being dependent on if/when the state/federal government would step in. I've added a suggested bullet, please let me know what you think about the new wording. 

  • I've moved the CTE funding bullet on to the funding slide (instead of placing it in "other") 

  • We did not have time to dig into accountability as much as some of the other topics, but there was significant support to return 1/2 accountability point back for CTE courses (7 votes).

  • I created a new topic section titled "Local Control" and included Broadband implementation, Local accountability, and local governance control into one area. 
  • I removed the list "budgetary, curricular, and personnel" from the bullet point on local governance per participant suggestion 
Upcoming Interim Hearings

You can find all house hearing live streams here and all senate live streams here.

I'll continue to update this list as well as include a brief summary of past hearings each week:

  1. Senate Committee on Finance - Wednesday May 4th, 10am - Agenda - This is the first hearing with new chairperson Senator Huffman. They will discuss inflation's impact on the business community and state government as well as investments made by the Teacher Retirement System.
  2. House Committee on Higher Education - Thursday, May 5th, 10am - Agenda - The Committee will discuss the 60x30 plan progress.
  3. Senate Committee on Higher Education - Tuesday, May 10th, 1pm - Agenda - the committee will hear updates on workforce initiatives and monitoring of the Tri- Agency efforts.
  4. Senate Committee on Finance - Tuesday May 17th, 10am - Agenda - The committee will discuss ways to reduce the property tax burden.
  5. Senate Committee on Business and Commerce - May 18th, 9am - Agenda - The Committee will discuss issues around cybersecurity.
  6. House Committee of Public Education - May 24th, 10am - We do not have an official notice for this hearing, but I sent the topics that will be covered via email (on April 29th at 3:25pm)
Interim Hearing Summaries
I have four summaries to share with you. Due to their length, I've created separate documents for each:

Senate Committee on Local Government - April 20th - There was an extensive discussion on the state of bond elections, including an exchange between Senator Menéndez and several witnesses on the accuracy of the statement "THIS IS A TAX INCREASE."

House Ways and Means Committee - April 21st - There was an interesting exchange between Chair Meyer and Mike Meyer from TEA on regulations on ESSER spending and a data point that the state had "spent" $2.1 billion on attendance funding.

House Public Education - April 26th - I've included a brief summary of Commissioner Morath's update. You can also find his full presentation here.

House State Affairs - April 26th - A detailed review of the Broadband Development Office progress, including an admittance from the committee that this project was going to cost the state close to 10 billion dollars. Additional update on cybersecurity measures across the state.

You can find all of the summaries in the newly create Interim Hearing Summaries Folder found here.

If you'd like these emailed directly to you, let me know and I can email them as attachments.

I tried to keep the summaries as short(ish) to be as pertinent to BCEC topics as possible. Please let me know if you have any questions.
What we are reading

AHISD, EISD, ECISD, FSHISD, HISD, JISD, LISD, MVISD, NEISD, NISD, RFISD, SAISD, SCUCISD, SISD, SISD, SWISD
We are here to help:

Julia
210-279-2787
Julia@BCECTX.org

Charles
940-768-8594
Charlesluke43@gmail.com

Matt
512-826-8103
mmatthews@mcguirewoods.com