From the desk of Senator David Pearce

Legislative Session Work Begins The next Missouri legislative session begins Jan. 4, but work is already underway for possible legislation. December 1 begins the process of assigning numbers to prefiled legislation. Prefiling legislation is important, because the quicker a bill is introduced in the legislature, the more opportunity it has for debate in each chamber. The process begins with the most senior lawmaker offering up to three bills for prefiling and continues through the Senate roster until there are no more bills being offered. However, bills can be introduced by any senator during session until March 1. I am prefiling three bills before the 2012 legislative session begins. The first bill deals with Higher Education. It focuses on retaining college students, reducing the remediation of students, and makes course transfers easier among our public two- and four-year institutions. It modifies the duties assigned to the Coordinating Board of Higher Education. It will add a number of responsibilities to the current list of duties, including: · Requiring two- and four-year institutions to create a list of statewide lower division courses that will be transferable across all public higher education institutions; · The development of a policy that will offer an associate degree to any student transferring with enough credits to receive that degree by a four-year institution that offers associate degrees; · Assuring that the statewide assessment alignment of entry-level courses is in line with current competencies. This provision is aimed at making our state’s higher education institutions more competitive and in line with other higher learning institutions throughout the country. The second bill I am offering modifies the formula by which elementary and secondary education institutions receive funding, called the foundation formula. As I’ve written before, the state budget has faced many difficult choices over the last few challenging years. We have managed to minimize cuts to education funding, but the bottom line is that lawmakers needed to come up with an alternative way to provide monies to this area. With that in mind, my act outlines a method of proration benchmarks to provide payments should appropriations not allow for full funding. This funding will apply differently to hold-harmless and formula districts. If the formula is overfunded, hold-harmless districts will increase by half the rate of formula districts and if under-funded, reduced by half the rate. Utilizing this method offers options in which the original language failed to do, the reality of potential under-funding. The third bill deals with providing a legislative fix in the case of determining where students can attend public schools in the event their school becomes unaccredited. As always, supporting the best interests of education is among my highest priorities. I believe that these bills show that I have not lessened my stance on behalf of our state’s students, teachers, or schools. Preparing tomorrow’s leaders, whether K-12 or college students, is of the utmost importance to our state’s future. I will continue to work for the advancement of our education system and its institutions. As always, please feel free to contact me or my staff with any questions or concerns at any time. We look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions and trying to answer any questions you may have. You can reach us by phone at 866-277-0882 (toll-free) or 573-751-2272, or by fax at 573-526-7381. Senator David Pearce serves Bates, Cass, Johnson and Vernon counties in the 31st State Senatorial District.