Legislative update [Mar. 19, 2007]

2007 LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education

The Week Ahead:
Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, March 28 (10:00 a.m., room 341 Capitol)
Senate Higher Education Committee Wednesday, March 28 (3:00 p.m., Mezz Room - Capitol)
Useful Links:
For more information on House and Senate members or to track legislation, logon to www.legis.state.ga.us
To access live committee meeting broadcasts in the House, logon to www.legis.state.ga.us, click on House, then select Georgia Legislative Network from the Daily Update which will provide a menu of broadcasts

Week of March 19, 2007
Lawmakers returned on Monday, March 19, after an extended break to deal with the PeachCare funding issue. Both houses will return to work on Tuesday to continue their duties in the 11 days that remain. Highlights for the past week include:
Tuesday, March 27 (the 30th day of the session), is "crossover day", the deadline for getting a piece of legislation adopted by the chamber where it was introduced.
The House Appropriations Committee passed out the fiscal year 2007 amended budget on Monday which included the replacement of TANF funding for adult literacy, the KIA training request and $750,000 for roof repairs at Moultrie Technical College. The House approved the committee's report on Tuesday by a vote of 171-1 but subsequently rescinded the vote using a parliamentary procedure that allows them to ask for a vote to be reconsidered due to philosophical differences between the House and the Senate leaders on the purpose of the amended budget.
These philosophical differences were apparent in the higher education subcommittee meetings of both the House and Senate Appropriations committees. Senator John Wiles focused on the immediate need for funding items in the House version of the supplemental budget while Representative Bob Smith revisited all items in the amended budget as well as the FY08 budget items.
Senate Resolutions 422 and 421, which commend our GOAL and Rick Perkins winners, were introduced by Higher Education Chairman Seth Harp. Both Kayla Chaney and Paul Graham will be recognized on the House and Senate floors at a time and date to be determined.
House Bill 229, legislation which requires the reserves for the HOPE program to drop by at least 10% before students would be hit with potential reductions for book and fee payments, passed out of the House on Tuesday by a vote of 161-0.
House Bill 363, which adds Georgia Military College to the list of colleges where a student can receive the HOPE grant, passed out of the House on Tuesday and now heads to the Senate for consideration.
Senate Bill 111, which allows the University System to carry forward tuition revenues from fiscal year to fiscal year, passed out of the Senate on Tuesday. However, the bill was amended to limit the carry forward to three percent of total tuition collected.
House Resolution 426, which creates a joint House and Senate Higher Education Finance and Formula Study Commission to review current financing, funding formulas, and potential alternatives for a performance-based funding component for both the Board of Regents and the Department of Technical and Adult Education, passed out of the House Higher Education Committee and now heads to the full House for consideration.

For questions regarding information contained in this bulletin, contact Laura Gammage lgammage@dtae.org (404) 374-6557