K-12 education watchers at the Capitol had to be intrigued on this twenty-fifth day of the 2010 session of the Georgia General Assembly, as it was time once again for the annual address to a joint session of the House and Senate by the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court on the state of the judiciary.  Want to take a guess as to what her main topic was?  How about budget cuts!!!  So, not only do the children in Georgia's public schools continue to get the short end of the budget stick, so do those awaiting their turn at the wheels of justice.  The state's budget picture simply has no bright spots, and the continued refusal of legislative leaders to even consider revenue increases begins to appear quite short-sighted.  Perhaps as the level of the drumbeat rises.....

That said, GSSA was finally able to determine how some of the Governor's budget recommendations issued last week will affect local school systems, and superintendents were notified of those figures in a late-afternoon email.  In a nutshell, it appears that (for now) the austerity cuts to local school systems for FY2011 may be slightly lower than currently listed on their mid-term allotment sheets for FY2010 (but only slightly lower, to the tune of some 3.7%).  The bigger cut, though, comes as a result of Governor Perdue having moved most of the stimulus (ARRA) funds intended for use in FY2011 into FY2010 as a budget-balancer, leaving only a fraction of the ARRA funds to cushion the blow of the massive cuts scheduled for FY2011.  Some systems find themselves with cuts of 25% or more from their original budgets for FY2010, and those massive cuts simply cannot be managed without major layoffs, increased class sizes, fewer days of school, or a combination of all of the above.  Budget development for local systems has now turned into a reality play that will affect the lives of many.  And, since the Governor's revised budget estimate is still based on a set of assumptions that may or may not be accepted by the General Assembly, the "rest of the story" is still not written.

In the meantime, the General Assembly plods along.  No House bills of interest to educators were acted upon on this day, but the Senate passed two:

• SB 387, requiring the Georgia Student Finance Commission to provide online career counseling for students in grades 6-12; and,
• SB 392, requiring educational institutions (read:  local school systems) to prove that contract carriers are properly certified and insured before being allowed to transport students.

Both of these bills now go the House for their consideration.

In another item of interest to superintendents and others, Governor Perdue signed into law HB 906 on this afternoon.  This is the bill that extends until May 15 for the next three years the contract renewal deadline for certificated educators.  It became effective upon his signature.

Later on this afternoon, Senator Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody) convened his Senate Education and Youth Committee.  In a meeting that lasted only about 40 minutes, the senators approved "do pass" recommendations for SB 420 (allows certain absences to be forgiven for purposes of awarding perfect attendance certificates to students), SR 1199 (reduces certificate renewal requirements to 5 PLU's for the next five years and creates a task force to study certificate renewal requirements), and #SB 457 (would permit conversion charter status by referendum of voters for high school clusters of schools).  Also considered by this committee once again was SB 320 (now known as the "Educator's Bill of Rights), but after discovering that several tenets of the bill conflict with existing law, the author and legislative counsel will revise it for another round of debate at Thursday's scheduled meeting of this committee.

Amazingly, and though it is virtually impossible for a bill to have time to make it through the process at this late date, bills continue to drop.  Noticed/summarized by GSSA today are:

• HR 1432 -- proposes a 1% sales tax to eliminate ad valorem taxes for education
• HR 1485 -- calls for a task force to review teacher certification requirements
• HB 1339 -- would require a fiscal note for any piece of education legislation that might have a fiscal impact on the revenues or expenditures of a local board of education
• HB 1348 -- seeks to form a school bus safety task force
• SB 460 -- would require local governments (including local boards of education) to verify that any contractors they hire comply with the federal work authorization program, even for subcontractors that the board could not know about when they award the low bid to such contractors.

Day twenty-six is set for Wednesday, March 17 (Happy St. Patrick's Day!).