Legislature Files Over 2000 Bills in Each Chamber

The general bill filling deadline for the Tennessee General Assembly passed last Thursday. After this point, private acts and certain budgetary acts may be filed, but otherwise, general legislation is not to be filed unless approved by a late bills committee. The Senate ended up with 2082 bills to date. The House with 2124. Those bills that do not have a companion bill filed in the other chamber will not be eligible for passage this year. The legislation deals with a wide variety of issues. Many of the bills impact services provided by county government or the general administration of county government. We are working through the process of analyzing all this legislation and will be reporting bills of interest to you.

Governor Haslam Announces Legislative Package

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam this week introduced his administration’s legislative package for the 2011 session, focusing on educating the workforce, identifying the best teachers and revising the state’s civil justice system.

Haslam’s legislative package is a single piece of his jobs agenda to make Tennessee the No. 1 location in the Southeast for high quality jobs.

The legislation seeks to:

• Make tenure tied to classroom performance; extend probationary time from three to five years
• Lift the cap on charter schools and allow open enrollment
• Allow the state’s Achievement School District (part of First to the Top) to authorize charter schools
• Extend use of the lottery scholarship for summer courses and cap the total number of hours based on required degree completion
• Limits non-economic damages for both healthcare liability action and other personal injury actions
• Limits and clarifies standards for assessing punitive damages
• Limits appeal bond amounts

“Our legislation being filed with the Tennessee General Assembly is tightly focused on opportunities to enhance job creation and is one piece of our agenda to make Tennessee more competitive in the Southeast,” Haslam said.

Other pieces of Haslam’s jobs agenda include streamlining state government and aggressively examining rules and regulations to assure this three-part test is met: will they make a difference, are they performance-based, and what the expected outcomes are.

Also, the Department of Economic and Community Development is focused on a top-to-bottom approach that aligns state efforts with returns on investment.

“These initial steps in transforming state government will lead to more efficiency and effectiveness and deliver excellent customer service,” Haslam said.

For more, see the full press release and statement here: http://news.tnanytime.org/node/6721

Amazing Turnout Expected for Education Workshops

So far, the four evening education workshops for county commissioners have a total of 168 people registered. It's a great problem to have, but the Knox County meeting has maxed out at 75 and can take no more registrations.

These classes will be very informative for county commissioners and relate to one of the most important and complicated aspects of county government services and budgeting. I'm very excited and encouraged that there has been such a strong response to the classes.

Articles Related to Hall Income Tax Proposals

Tom Humphreys of the Knoxville News Sentinnel has two excellent articles on his blog from AP reporter Erik Schelzig about a legislative proposal to abolish the Hall Income Tax in Tennessee. He focuses on the impact such a proposal would have on local governments that currently receive a share of the tax. In total, the local government share is around $62 million out of a total in Hall Income Tax collections of $172 million.

One article breaks down the revenue distributed to local governments by county. Keep in mind though, that these figures include distributions to the county as well as all municipal governments in the county. The lion's share of the revenue going to local governments from the Hall Income tax goes to municipalities - somewhere between two thirds to three fourths depending on the year.

You can find the articles at his blog: http://blogs.knoxnews.com/humphrey/

Tom is considered the dean of Capital Hill reporters and generally has his finger on the pulse of things going on at the Legislative Plaza.

Analysis of the Basic Education Program

In December, the Offices of Research and Education Accountability wtihin the State Comptroller's Office released a Legislative Brief on Tennessee's Basic Education Program. The 34 page document summarizes the provisions of the law, explains how the various funding components work and provides several charts of system by system comparisons of funding and costs.

The publication is available on-line here.

Training Available on K-12 Education Funding and Reform

The County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS) and TCCA are offering a training session about Education Funding and Reform. This is the second class in the series of evening workshops that began last fall with the Overview of the County Commission in Tennessee classes.

This class is designed to inform county commissioners about how education funding in Tennessee is structured while also providing an overview of major developments in education reform currently being implemented in our school systems. The funding portion of the class will give officials a general understanding of the Basic Education Program formula which is used to determine state and local funding for K-12 school systems in Tennessee. The funding portion of the class will focus on how an individual system’s share of education funding is determined, including the calculation of local fiscal capacity, and describe the funding requirements that state law places on local funding bodies. The reform portion of the class will review recent developments in Tennessee related to k-12 education reform, including changes in school standards and assessments through the Tennessee Diploma Project, the impact of Race to the Top Grants, the First to the Top program, changes in teacher assessments and other possible reforms. The intent is to help county officials understand new changes that are currently being implemented and how they will impact the overall performance, operation and evaluation of their local school system. Dinner will be provided at 6:00 p.m. with the session offered from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Attendance is free for county officials.

County Commissioners should be receiving a mail notice and registration form about these workshops. The dates and locations are below.

SouthEast Tennessee
Tuesday, February 8 Athens
Athens Conference Center
2405 Decatur Pike, Athens, TN

East Tennessee
Wednesday, February 9 Knoxville
UT Conference Center Building (Room 413A)
600 Henley Street. Knoxville, TN

West Tennessee
Thursday, February 17 Jackson
West TN Research and Education Center (Room A)
605 Airways Boulevard, Jackson, TN

Middle Tennessee
Wednesday, March 23 Franklin
Williamson County Ag Expo Park
4215 Long Lane, Franklin, TN

Statement of Disclosure of Interest due by January 31

All local elected officials are required to file a Statement of Disclosure of Interests (Form 22-8005) with the Tennessee Ethics Commission. This requirement also applies to officials who were appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected public office. The deadline for filing the statement is January 31. You can file this report online by going to www.tennessee.gov/sos/tec/forms.htm and clicking on the appropriate link or you can download the file, fill it out and mail it in. It is available for download here.

If you have questions about the disclosure requirement or form, contact the commission office at (615) 741-7959 or by email at ethics.counsel@state.tn.us.