Rumors of additional budget cuts for this fiscal year continued to swirl throughout the Capitol on this day, even as legislators geared up for one more shot at an attempt to pass legislation that would limit the ability of local governments to pay for local services.  HR 1 is scheduled for debate in the House on Thursday, as is HB233, and both are House-led attempts to require that the annual increases in the assessed value of property be capped.  It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to cut state dollars while, at the same time, limit the ability of local school boards and others to pay for services on the local level.  Ah, the political scene in Atlanta.....

Committee meetings were held in both the House and the Senate on this day, said meetings for the purpose of conducting hearings on bills of interest to educators.  On the Senate side, Senator Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody) convened the Senate Education and Youth Committee to hear testimony on SB 84, the "school board governance bill."  Kudos go to GSBA's Angela Palm, whose work with the committee chairman and whose testimony before the committee served to raise legitimate concerns about portions of the content of this bill.  Perhaps the most incredulous comment made before the committee concerning this bill came from a supporter of the legislation who claimed to have research supporting a statistical connection between the actual number of members on a local school board and student achievement.  Testimony before legislative committees is not made under oath.

On the House side, two subcommittees of the House Education Committee held meetings.  The first heard the authors present on HB 149 (the "Move on When Ready" Act) and on HB 215 (the "3 diplomas" bill); time did not permit public comment on either of the bills, so no votes were taken.  The second subcommittee meeting focused on HB 251, Representative Alisha Thomas-Morgan's (R-Austell) bill mandating that school systems permit students to attend any school in their system without regard to established school zones; that bill received a "do pass" from the subcommittee with no dissenting votes and will move on to the full House Education Committee for consideration.

The full House Education Committee will meet on Thursday, Feb. 12 (Legislative Day 18), to assign bills to subcommittee and to hear reports from those subcommittees as to their recommendations on already-heard bills.