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The Legislature continues its forward progress as they passed the halfway point of this year’s legislative session this week. A second cut-off date was reached when bills had to pass out of fiscal committees by Monday. My bill tracking list got even smaller, but you never know what might happen in the remaining weeks. Language from bills that didn’t pass out of committees could still be used as budget provisos so we have to keep paying attention to all of the details.

We cleared the first big hurdle of this year’s legislative session this week when bills had to pass out of their policy committees. Bills with fiscal implications must pass out of House Appropriations or Senate Ways and Means by February 5. The next step after that is for bills to be passed off the floor of the House or the Senate and the deadline for that is February 13. After that, the bills move to the other side and the process repeats.

This week, we reached the peak of new policy bills being heard in committees. The first significant cut-off of this year’s legislative session is next Wednesday, January 31 when bills must be passed out of committee. Those with fiscal implications must pass out of House Appropriations or Senate Ways and Means by February 5. The next step after that is for bills to be passed off the floor of the House or the Senate and the deadline for that is February 13. After that, the bills move to the other side and the process repeats.

It was another busy week in the Legislature as the House and Senate Education Committees continued hearing a plethora of bills related to special education funding, new curriculum and graduation requirements, simple majority for bonds, and more. 51¸£ÀûÉç signed in support of the various bills that would increase funding in special education and update the health standards to include more information, resources, and instruction related to fentanyl. But, similar to the State Board of Education and the WEA, we shared the message that for the bills related to computer science, financial literacy, agricultural literacy, and Holocaust and genocide education, we would rather see a comprehensive look at the graduation requirements in order to strategically envision potential changes for future students.

The 2024 Legislative Session kicked off this week, and it will be a 60-day sprint to the finish. Hundreds of new bills were pre-filed, hundreds of bills are still in play from last year, and hundreds of new bills are being introduced, which makes for lots of reading and a massive bill tracking list. The first cut-off of the session is January 31, when bills must pass off the floor of their house of origin, so this list will be much shorter in just a few weeks. Whew.