2013 Legislative Session Wrapup

The 2013 legislative session is over. There were 1,176 total pieces of legislation introduced in the 2013 Legislative Session. Some of these bills were introduced in both the House and Senate: what they refer to as “companion” bills. There were a total of 170 pairs of bills that had companions in the House and Senate. Some bills even had a companion in their own house, meaning that two identical bills were introduced into either the House or the Senate.

Of the 105 bills introduced having to do with K-12 public education, 20 became law. Of those same 105, there were 16 companion bills introduced into both the House and Senate, which means 89 original bills were introduced.

The 20 bills that became law are listed in the table below. Click the link to view each Act in its final version:

Notable Passages

There are a number of new laws that will impact our children, including the AAA (which I wrote about extensively last week) and the Educational Intervention and Accountability Act, which will allow the SBOE and ALSDE to intervene in local school systems when needed. Check out this article from the Montgomery Advertiser and these comments from State Superintendent Bice and the SBOE at last week’s work session on the Intervention Act.  These two laws together allow for flexibility in programming and budgeting by local school systems, school choice for those attending “failing” schools, and quicker action by the SBOE when schools are struggling to properly educate children.

The $50 million Career Tech bond issue should prove to enhance career and technical education offerings in the state by investing in up-to-date training equipment and . Details are evolving as to how it will be distributed and utilized. Here’s an article from al.com about the bond issue.

A few bills relating to School Safety passed, including HB91, which requires Code Red drills to be held along with other weather- and fire-related drills and requires school districts to develop and annually review their comprehensive safety plan. HB404, a local bill pertaining only to Franklin County, survived a Governor’s veto and allows Franklin County school officials to train and equip a volunteer emergency security force for their schools.

Etowah County also gained the ability through HB600 allow retired law enforcement officers to serve as school resource officers on a part-time basis.

The Charles “Chuck” Poland, Jr. Act makes it a crime to trespass on a school bus. The Act is named in honor of the Dale County bus driver who was fatally shot after an intruder boarded the bus he was driving and demanded Poland hand over children to be used as hostages. Poland refused and was killed.

SB383 authorizes all local boards of education to allow certain trained school resource officers and security personnel to carry a “deadly weapon” while on duty for their school system.

Interestingly, two county superintendent positions, Crenshaw County and Cullman County, have been changed from elected to appointed positions.

$30 million in bonds will be sold to repair schools damaged in the April 27, 2011, and December 25, 2012, tornadoes. Details of how much will be allocated to whom are in the Act.

Where the budget is concerned, teachers will be given a 2% pay raise and $5 million has been appropriated to develop a liability insurance program for public education employees. Details on the raise and insurance program are in this al.com article.

Click here to view a spreadsheet of the approved $5.77 billion Education Trust Fund (ETF) budget. Click here to view the final allocation of monies through the Foundation Program, which provides the bulk of state funding to Alabama’s schools.

Notable Losses

Some notable bills that never made it to a vote, including those that never made it out of their committee or maybe did make it out of committee but didn’t make it to a full vote of their own house or the second house, include:

SB67 would have removed the mandate that currently exists for local boards of education to comply with unfunded mandates. Other bodies are exempted, but not local boards of education. It was passed by the Senate and received a favorable report from a House committee, but didn’t make it to the floor of the full House.

HB182, the School Resource Officers’ Act, would have established a state school resource officers’ (SRO) program and provide state funding one-half  of the average SRO salary and benefits for each officer. It was contingent upon the passage of a constitutional amendment creating the Alabama Lottery Corporation.

HB612, the Secure Schools Facilities Act, which would authorize the sale of $50 million in bonds “to pay for equipment and renovation to secure all entrances to every K-12 public school in the state” made it through the House, through its Senate committee, but never made it to the full Senate floor.  From an al.com article about the proposed Act: “According to a news release from the legislators, 96 percent of the schools in the state cannot lock all exterior doors from a central location, 71 percent cannot monitor all exterior doors from a central location and 46 percent of teachers cannot lock classroom doors from the inside.”

There were a few education lottery bills that never made it out of their committees.

The bills to keep the Common Core State Standards out of Alabama’s standards didn’t make it. While there seemed to be initial support among legislators for the bills, only one, SB403, made it out of their respective committees. SB403 was never taken up by the full Senate.

The Tim Tebow Act was introduced again, and received a favorable report from its Senate committee, but was lost on the floor of the Senate by a vote to carry over the bill.

Companion bills SB227 and HB353 were introduced to change the way teachers are considered for layoff in reduction-in-force (RIF) situations. It contained specific language that local boards would have had to include in their RIF policies which laid out the structure to determine who gets laid off. SB227 made it out of its committee, but was “indefinitely postponed” for the session. Its House companion never made it out of committee.

Conclusion

Check out the ALSDE’s Bill Tracker for bills that were enacted that they followed.