Legislative Committee Meeting, January 9, 2012

[Diane Blevins]

AA Caucus Meeting

Monday, January 9, 2012

12:00-1:00 PM

Minutes

The Vision Net meeting was called to order by MTSBA Grassroots Advocacy Specialist, Steve Meloy due to the excused absence of Chairman Joe Cohenhour and Vice Chairperson Denise Hayman. All seven AA districts were represented.

The first agenda item was a report from the Bozeman School District’s efforts in organizing its RESA4U cooperative. Trustee Gary Lusin reported that a group of interested parties met on January 5, 2012, in Townsend, MT in a gathering attended by approximately 50 people. The past session of the Legislature appropriated money for the use by districts in HB 2 with language found in SB 329 to set up multi-district cooperatives consisting of any two or more school districts. Trustees of all participating districts must approve the agreement annually by April 1st.

The distribution of a $2 million appropriation is based on the General Fund BASE budget of each participating district in FY2013. OPI calculates the BASE budget for school districts in their MAEFAIRS program. The BASE budget for FY2013 is calculated using enrollment counts from Oct. 2011 and Feb. 2012, the Quality Educator count from the 2012 Annual Data Collection report and other factors. All seven districts have plans to avail themselves to this program.

The next order of business was a report on the work of the School Funding Resolution Group (aka Multi-disciplinary Group) and specifically from the work of the meeting of December 12, 2011. Steve explained that the work has been captured in a framework document (see attached) with core ideology, core purpose, core values, a Big Audacious Goal (BAG) and a vivid description of a desired future for Montana K-12 education (see attached). He also explained that the preliminary charge to the group was to develop a global description of what the basic system of free public elementary and secondary needs to look like under our Montana Constitution We need to describe the ‘Big Picture” future success of K-12 public schools before we get into the specifics of analyzing our current circumstances and developing suggested changes to current law and funding formulas. Work on the details will unfold under the second and third planned meetings. Members of the AA Caucus who currently serve on the School Funding Resolution Study are: Cheryl Crawley, Great Falls Public Schools; Darlene Schottle, Kalispell Public Schools; Denise Hayman, Bozeman Public Schools; Aidan Myhre, Helena Public Schools; Teresa Stroebe, Billings Public Schools; and Pat McHugh, Missoula Public Schools. The next meeting of the group is scheduled for February 6, 2012 in Helena.

Steve informed the group that work continues on the draft of the bylaws. A question raised about a required annual meeting in conjunction with MCEL was met with a response that if the group did not want to continue the practice they would have to amend the bylaws which currently use the words ” shall” meet.

Future agenda items include a report out on current federal issues/concerns and a briefing of MTSBA’s visit with Senator Tester on January 9th. Also, Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau will speak to the Caucus Board about her Graduation Matters Montana initiative at our March meeting. Also, to be noted, at the request of Chairman Cohenhour, the next meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 13, 2012.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 12:52 PM.