Governance
These bills encompass everything you make decisions on as a board, from building sales to providing transportation.
SF 2368—Open Enrollment Funding and Building Sales: This bill changed significantly from its original form. The bill does the following:
Requires two categorical funds, professional development and early intervention, to follow open enrolled students to their receiving district and students who attend a charter school. The state cost per pupil will be sent to the receiving district.
Requires school districts to sell property to another educational institution, like a charter or nonpublic school, if they are the highest bidder. Additionally, schools cannot have a deed restriction on selling to charter or nonpublic schools.
Allows online charter school students to participate in up to two extracurricular activities in their resident district. The district can charge up to $200 per activity.
School districts can enter into sharing agreements with charter schools on activities that a charter school doesn’t offer.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill. We would prefer no restrictions on districts when selling property, but this version still allows for a competitive bidding process. The bill passed the House by a vote of 52-38 and passed the Senate by a vote of 31-15. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 17, 2024.
SF 2385—Boards and Commissions: This bill is a continuation of the governor’s government reorganization plan from last year. It details which boards and commissions will remain, what will be combined and what will be eliminated. It eliminates the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), and instead there will be an Employment Appeals Board. This board will have the same duties as PERB. It eliminates the Telecommunications Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations on the use of telecommunications as an instructional tool.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill. It passed the House by a vote of 54-42 and passed the Senate by a vote of 32-14. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 17, 2024.
SF 2391—Purchasing Meat Products: The bill includes a section that requires school districts to have a policy that prevents them from purchasing food products that are misbranded as meat or egg products or cultivated protein food products.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill because cultivated-protein food products are not available on the general market, so this shouldn’t impact districts’ current buying practices; however, we do have concerns about which specific products districts will be prevented from buying. The bill passed the House by a vote of 60-34 and passed the Senate by a vote of 33-12. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 15, 2024.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill, but we have no concerns with making conforming code changes. The bill passed the House by a vote of 95-0 and the Senate by a vote of 48-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on April 10, 2024.
HF 2278—Open Enrollment Transportation: This bill allows a receiving district of an open enrolled student to send school vehicles into the district of residence to pick up students. This is limited to districts with an enrollment of less than 2,000 students, vehicles can’t go more than two miles into the district of residence, and the student must live closer to their school in the receiving district than the school they would attend in their district of residence. If the school board in both the sending and receiving districts agree to it, transportation can be provided by the receiving district in any circumstance. The bill clarifies that sending districts are not responsible for the cost of transportation for low-income students if they take advantage of transportation outlined in this bill.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill because it doesn’t require approval by the board in both districts, but there are good limitations on it. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 49-0 and passed the House by a vote of 91-6. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 1, 2024.
HF 2393—Dental Screenings: This bill adds dental screenings, in addition to vision and hearing, as allowed in schools without receiving parental consent. An amendment on the House floor specifically added the word 'screening' to clarify the intent.
IASB is registered for the bill, as this is an important service schools provide students. The bill passed the House by a vote of 95-0 and passed the Senate 48-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on April 10, 2024.
HF 2398—Bond and Insurance Policies for Board Members: The bill allows a public officer to purchase an insurance policy in lieu of posting a bond and requires the policy to substantially meet the bond requirements. It allows for the reasonable expenses of the insurance policy to be paid for by the government to the extent the expenses of the bond would be covered.
IASB is registered in support of the bill because it reflects the current practice of districts. The bill passed the House by a vote of 97-0 and the Senate by a vote of 46-0. The bill was signed into law by Governor Reynolds on April 19, 2024.
HF 2487—Board of Educational Examiners (BOEE) Requirements: This bill includes several policies related to BOEE procedures:
Moves the process established for investigating complaints against school employees under the authority of the BOEE. This process was established in legislation (HF 430) last year, but under the authority of the Department of Education.
Adds mandatory reporting of grooming behavior to the BOEE and will result in a teacher’s license being revoked.
Adds definitions of grooming behavior, inappropriate relationships, and misconduct.
BOEE will report any evidence of a crime to law enforcement that they find during an investigation of a licensed or non licensed school employee.
Removes the statute of limitations to file a complaint against a school employee for engaging in an inappropriate relationship.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill. We like the addition of a definition of grooming; however, we have concerns about removing the statute of limitations because it could put districts in a difficult position of defending a claim from years prior without sufficient witnesses or evidence. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 49-0 and passed the House by a vote of 89-0. The bill was signed into law by Governor Reynolds on April 19, 2024.
HF 2602—Grooming as a Criminal Offense: The bill adds grooming of a minor as a criminal offense and defines what constitutes grooming. This is one of two bills this session addressing grooming and providing definitions, but this bill adds it as a class D felony whereas HF 2487 makes it a mandatory reporting topic.
IASB is registered undecided because this bill’s definition is different than what was in HF 2487, so there are now two definitions of grooming in code. The bill passed the House by a vote of 94-0 and passed the Senate by a vote of 46-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 1, 2024.
HF 2615—Providing College Debt Information: This bill requires schools to provide 11th and 12th grade students who have expressed an interest in postsecondary education with information compiled by colleges and universities on student loan debt and income of graduates. Additionally, the supplemental weighting for a shared career and college transition counselor or coordinator will be exempt from a district’s maximum allowed weighting. Districts only have to provide a link to the student debt and income information.
IASB is registered in support of the bill. We support the operational sharing exemption for the career and college transition counselor role and want to ensure it’s not an extra burden for districts to get the information that must be provided to students on loan debt and income. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 48-0 and passed the House by a vote of 95-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 1, 2024.
HF 2653—Perry School District Waivers: This bill provides waivers for hours and graduation requirements for the Perry School District because of the tragic shooting earlier this year. Also, the district can use its management fund to pay a one-time retention bonus to employees. The state Department of Education will work with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure other waivers are granted for federal requirements.
IASB is registered in support of the bill because it helps Perry get through a difficult school year without worrying about these requirements. The bill passed the House by a vote of 94-1 and passed the Senate by a vote of 49-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill on April 5, 2024.
SF 2331—Public Notice Requirements: The bill requires a public notice website to be operated by a statewide association of newspapers. The website must contain all public notices required by law, be searchable, allow for the public to subscribe to email notifications for certain notices and provide access to the notifications for at least one year after publication. An amendment by the House allows the public notice website to charge a fee to subscribe to the notifications. The fee will not exceed the cost of providing the subscription service.
Additionally, if a newspaper has a website, they are required to post public notices online without requiring a subscription to see them. Newspaper websites will also publish the link to the statewide website of all public notices.
IASB is registered in support of the bill, although we preferred an earlier version of the bill that allowed public notice requirements to be met simply by publishing them on the statewide website. The bill passed the House by a vote of 95-2 and the Senate concurred with their amendment and passed it by a vote of 47-0. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on April 10, 2024.
SF 2442—Tax Bill: This bill makes changes and corrections to last year’s tax bill, including some provisions that impact school districts:
Section 26: Requires all political subdivisions (including schools) to file their tax rate information with Department of Management by March 5. There is language that explicitly says that if a county or city are late in filing, they are limited to the prior year tax levies.
Section 27: The county auditor is required to mail statements to taxpayers by March 15
Section 28: Expands the example of what each political subdivision must provide
Section 29: New language that requires us to post a link to the Department of Management website where this example information is contained.
Section 30: Requires that the public hearing date is on or after March 20
Section 31: Sets out some protections if newspapers fail to file the notice in a timely manner if the political subdivision can prove they provided that information to taxpayers in another manner and that they filed it in a timely manner with the newspaper.
Section 32: Eliminates the requirement that all statements sent to taxpayers be maintained on the district’s website and requires that the proposed budget year information is posted to the website no later than the date the statement was mailed.
Section 42: New language that allows a municipality to extend a TIF enacted prior to January 1, 2018 with the approval of all other taxing entities.
The bill changes the certification date for the Instructional Support Levy (ISL) to April 30.
IASB is registered undecided on the bill because the bill offers some needed clarifications but still does not specifically extend deadlines for providing information for budget transparency statements if SSA is not set on time. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 39-7 and passed the House by a vote of 68-24. Governor Reynolds signed the bill into law on May 1, 2024.
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