Monday night the Adair – Casey and Guthrie Center School Boards met in a special legislative priorities meeting, with local state representatives attending.
House Representative for District 23 Ray Sorensen and Senator for District 24 Jesse Green both came to the meeting to hear from the members of both Boards on priorities they’d like to see discussed in the upcoming 2025 Legislative Session. The main topic of discussion was bringing back the incentives for whole grade sharing and consolidation, which help provide extra funding to districts who are going through consolidation as they lose some operational sharing dollars, and work to find more after the consolidation is finalized.
AC/GC Superintendent Josh Rasmussen said that there is a lot of alignment in the districts that would help them consolidate, and that he realizes there are ten or less whole grade sharing districts currently looking at consolidation, so there may not be many people talking about it, but for rural districts like AC/GC, it is a big issue. Green mentioned that when Rasmussen first contacted him about the meeting, he got in touch with the Senator for District Three Lynn Evans, the Chair of the Senate Education Committee who previously was a superintendent, and that recently Evans let him know that a Senate bill has been drafted to reinstate the incentives, and will be making its way through the legislative process once session begins.
Representative Sorensen tells Raccoon Valley Radio how both chambers can help to make sure that the topic of these incentives is addressed.
“Getting a companion bill out of the Senate and the House at the same time, expedites that process. And, I don’t see either of our Chairs of Education having a problem with a bill like that. So it’s just kind of going through the process and getting a bill drafted and making sure that it comes out of the House and Senate at the same time and is on a little bit of a speedy pace, so they can look forward and budget properly here in AC/GC.”
Other topics on the night included preschool funding, which Green mentioned might be one of the larger topics of discussion this session. AC Board member Randy Carney asked what that discussion may look like, as he knows there are several people around the state that wonder why preschool students are only counted as half a student when it comes to the funding provided by the state. Green said that at this time, he’s unsure which way the discussion will flow on the topic, as they are waiting for Governor Kim Reynolds to give her Condition of the State address to see what her stance on the topic is. Green also shared another area that he’s heard will be a discussion piece this session.
“I think there’s going to be some conversation this session about the Management Levy. Can we loosen up the Management Levy to allow schools to either pay some retention bonuses to teachers rather than just retirement benefits? So I think that’s a good healthy conversation to take place.”
Final topics on the night included loan forgiveness for teachers, economic growth, teacher apprenticeship, and insurance.