Education advocates press for bill hearings before first big legislative deadline

Let the culling of the legislation herd begin. Bills that don’t make it past the first hurdle on Friday will be left behind. Advocates are teeing up ambitious topics to try to keep them alive.

Friday, March 17, is the first chamber posting deadline. The Legislature’s policy committees, which include House and Senate education, are bound by procedural deadlines. Bills must be posted by Friday on an agenda for a work session in the chamber where they first appeared or they are effectively “dead.”

(Nothing is really dead in the Legislature until the final gavel falls. Revenue, ways and means, rules and joint committees are not bound by the deadline. There are parliamentary maneuvers to get around deadlines too, although they are seldom used.) 

With that in mind, advocates are watching closely for the early learning plans in House Bills 3198 and 3454. They were scheduled for Monday, March 13, in the House Education Committee but then got pulled off without a new hearing scheduled as of Monday morning.

HB 3198 is championed by education advocacy groups including Stand For Children, and HB 3454 is Gov. Tina Kotek’s bill. The bills are not in a final form and will likely be combined into one. Education advocates are watching for amendments on issues, including: 

• The mechanism for making sure these investments will work for small school districts. OSBA has advocated for a per-student minimum funding floor that sets a useful grant amount for Oregon’s smallest schools. To be effective, this policy must make sense across Oregon.
• The level of investment. Kotek’s recommended budget proposed $120 million in dedicated funding for an early literacy investment. Advocates, including in the Legislature, have sought a larger allocation, possibly as high as $300 million.
• The source of the funds. Kotek’s bill would be paid for from general funds, making it completely additive to other education funds. Legislators may discuss funding the investment by allocating existing education funds that are part of the 2019 Student Success Act.  

Workforce investments are another big interest area, and the Senate Education Committee is sitting on Senate Bill 283, the main vehicle for education workforce help. It needs to be posted to stay alive, and it will likely need alterations. 

The current bill version, under the -3 amendments, has dozens of changes and investments that would give school districts reason to boo and cheer simultaneously. Further amendments could also come if it is moved to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, where funding is allocated. 

Similarly, HB 2739, the bill to get a true education cost accounting, will need to be posted to continue onward. It is a good bill, and OSBA is working with advocates to keep it moving. 

In spite of the tension surrounding ambitious bills and policy struggles, legislators sometimes have a little fun in the Capitol. An OSBA bill brought one of those moments. 

SB 271, an OSBA bill to make school district boundary information more easily accessible, was up for final consideration on the House floor March 7. The bill is so uncontroversial that it will likely be among the first group of bills to pass both chambers and make it to the governor’s desk for a signature. 

The carrier, Rep. Zach Hudson, D-Troutdale, delivered his floor speech supporting the bill in rhyme. The short video of the speech is a delight. 

- Richard Donovan,
Legislative Services specialist