eNews Jan. 17, 2019
Thursday, January 17, 2019 - 09:20am
In this issue:
Proffer Updates
Competing bills referred to full House committee
In an unexpected turn of events last evening, Subcommittee #2 of the House Counties, Cities and Towns Committee recommended two proffer bills be referred to the full committee which will meet Friday morning at 8:00am.
HB2342 (Thomas), which mirrors Senator Favola’s bill (SB1373) and was expected to pass without issue, was voted out of the subcommittee on a 6-1 vote. However, later in the meeting HB1801 (Ware) was also referred to the full committee on a 3-2 vote.
The differences between HB2342 and HB1801 include some changes in definitions as well as alternate language regarding capacity. Stay tuned for the outcome in the House!!
VML bill advances in the Senate
On Tuesday, the Senate Local Government Committee did as expected and passed SB1373 (Favola) which was the bill VML and other stakeholders had worked on over the summer. Senator Black’s SB1524 was rolled into Favola’s bill. SB1143 (Peake), which was the Goochland proposal, was defeated in a 12-1 vote.
VML Contact: Michelle Gowdy, mgowdy@vml.org
House, Senate pass first rounds of school safety legislation
Wednesday was the House’s first major review of legislation stemming from the work of this summer’s House Select Committee on School Safety. The Select Committee’s final report included 24 key recommendations, touching on areas ranging from counseling and early intervention to increased security staffing. The following bills have been reported out of the Education Committee and will continue to move through the legislative process:
- HB 1725 (Knight) would require school boards to develop procurement plans in consultation with local building officials, fire marshals, etc. to ensure that public school buildings comply with the Uniform Statewide Building Code and Fire Prevention Code.
- HB 1729 (Landes) would implement a mandatory minimum ratio of staffing time for school counselors, requiring that all school counselors spend at least 80 percent of their time on direct student services rather than on administrative duties.
- Note: Concerns around this bill include the potential need for school boards to hire additional administrative support staff to take on duties previously filled by school counselors.
- HB 1732 (O’Quinn) would require the development of an annual emergency training drill by each school district, to be implemented at each school by principals, under the argument that not all school districts currently have emergency training drills in place.
- HB 1733 (Gilbert) would require school districts to develop memoranda of understanding with local law enforcement agencies that employ school resource officers, to be reviewed either every five years or at the request of either party.
- HB 1738 (Rush) would require school divisions to receive approval for any school construction plan from either an architect or an engineer certified in the incorporation of crime prevention into environmental design.
- HB 1752 (Krizek) would establish the November general election day as a school holiday, so as to minimize the exposure of students and staff to strangers entering any school buildings that have been designated as polling places.
At the same time, the Senate Finance Committee unanimously passed SB 1023 (Cosgrove), aligning with Governor Northam’s proposed plan to reduce the statewide counselor-to-student ratio to 1:250 by the 2021-2022 school year. A similar bill, HB 2053 (McQuinn), has been introduced in the House and will likely be heard at the next meeting of the House Education Subcommittee #2.
It’s worth noting that in their present form, neither bill identifies a clear source of funding to support such a significant increase in hiring.
VML Contact: Jessica Ackerman, jackerman@vml.org
ERA moves forward in the Senate
On Tuesday, the Senate passed SJ 284, a resolution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, by a vote of 26-14. This year’s measure passed with bipartisan support and was patroned by Republican Senator Glen Sturtevant. However, the Senate has cleared similar iterations of the resolution in five of the last eight sessions. The resolution’s next challenge will come from the House of Delegates, which has never passed an ERA measure.
VML Contact: Jessica Ackerman, jackerman@vml.org
