More bills will come to a timely end today, May 9, the “second chamber work session posting deadline.”
Bills in policy committees must be posted to a future agenda by the end of today, or they will not be moving forward. The rules, revenue and joint committees remain exempt from the deadline, though, giving a place for both hope and dread to hide.
The posting deadline promises to heat up the action in the next two weeks. Any bills scheduled for a public hearing and/or work session by the end of May 9 only have until May 23 to actually pass out of committee. For most policy committees, that’s just four more meetings to conclude their work for the legislative session.
Some committees have already slowed significantly, hearing just one or two bills per meeting, while others will need to work efficiently to get through their remaining workload. Committees with time available may schedule informational hearings on topics they are interested in. The House Education Committee, for example, has scheduled an informational hearing Monday, May 12, with a researcher from the American Institutes for Research.
While we have a handful of bills remaining in policy committees that we will be working up to the deadline, we will also be keeping a close eye on rules and revenue committees, given their lack of deadlines.
Two important special education funding bills, House Bill 2953 and 2448, are sitting in the House Revenue Committee and are expected to be scheduled for work sessions after the revenue forecast is released Wednesday, May 14.
Controversial bills are often sent to the rules committees when it’s not certain there are the votes to pass them. Going to rules gives more time for further amendments or for legislators or lobbyists to continue trying to improve their vote count. Two bills driven by labor and opposed by OSBA have been sent to House Rules:
- HB 3652 would make class size a mandatory subject of bargaining for all schools as opposed to currently applying only to Title I schools. This bill was moved to rules on the first work session deadline of the session, April 9. It has not been scheduled for further action. We would prefer that remain the case because class size is already a permissible bargaining issue. Making it mandatory takes the focus off the real needs of students without addressing the funding necessary to realistically lower class sizes.
- HB 3881 would require that 15% of labor hours on any K-12 public works project that benefits directly or indirectly from state funds be completed by apprentices. The bill’s intent is to ensure that work is available to apprentices so they can progress to becoming full-fledged journey workers.
Unfortunately, from the public contracting perspective, the lack of apprentice training programs and apprentices outside the Interstate 5 corridor means that in many communities, local contractors would not be able to meet this standard. This in turn increases the likelihood that when a district seeks approval from voters for a bond, it will be with the understanding that many of the resulting construction jobs will not go to community members. We believe this dynamic will make it even harder for districts to pass bonds. The bill had a public hearing March 19, and Athena-Weston School Board member Scott Rogers expressed these concerns.
The proponents have expressed a willingness to consider amendments limiting the scope to only Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching and seismic grant dollars that districts might receive. We appreciate this, but we also know that for small/rural districts, those grants can make up the majority of a project. Such an amendment would grant them little relief.
This bill also moved to rules on the first deadline. It is scheduled for a public hearing May 14.
With rules, revenue and joint committees not having the same deadlines as policy committees, we must keep close watch on their agendas through the end of session.
For now, committees are still required to give at least 48 hours’ notice when scheduling bills. As we get closer to the session’s end, the rules change, eventually requiring only one hour’s notice when scheduling a bill.
Even though most policy committees are close to shutting down, staying prepared to respond to any surprise bill appearances will keep us busy through the end of the session.
– Stacy Michaelson
OSBA Government Relations and Communications Director
