Jordan Teachers Protest at School Board Meeting

According to Amy Stewart in the Deseret News (http://www.deseretnews.com/) about "500 people showed up for a Jordan School Board Meeting Tuesday night to let their opinions be heard regarding planned budget cuts that include laying off 500 employees." Jordan Education Association is also planning to have teachers outside school buildings with informational signs during parent-teacher conferences. The district is looking at a 30 Million dollar cut due to state cuts and the district split.

Our districts will also be looking at cuts, but we have not heard what they might be.
We will know more by the end of the session.

Two of the retirement bills are on the agenda for the House Retirement Committee today.

Rick

Legislative Update

The legislature (in an effort to subvert the initiative process)has given preliminary approval to some ethics bills. The bills are much weaker than the initiative. A Dan Jones poll said that Utah voters would support (by 80%) tax increases on tobacco and alcohol. The attempt by Rep. Brad King to raise income taxes on the rich failed (sent back to Rules) and the bill to expand sex education to include contraceptives also failed in committee. We did not see the three retirement bills on the reading calendar in the House. They should appear soon. Contact your representative.

Rick

Retirement Bills go to the House

Now our fight for retirement will be in the House of Representatives. Hopefully we can slow down the bills and see more time to study the problem. Please contact your represenatives by going to www.utea.org and clicking on the Under the Dome logo.

Thanks Rick

Pension Changes Pass First Hurdle in Senate

Sen. Jon Greiner spoke most strongly against the retirement bills on the Senate floor yesterday. Sadly, all three won preliminary approval (they will be brought to a third reading before sending them to the House). Our best chance to defeat them is in the House, even though our Weber legislator Rep. Brad Dee says he will sponsor them. Now is the the time to contact your member of the House and ask them to slow down the process and ask for a task force to study the "shortfall". Go to the www.utea.org website and click on "Under the Dome" to find your legislator and learn how to contact them.

Rick

Retirement Bills to be voted on today in the Senate

The three Retirement Bills should be debated and voted on this afternoon in the Senate. You can listen to the audio on the legislative website.

Other bills that UEA is monitoring include: SB16-Expands the use of adaptive online testing in place of CRT's, SB77-Restricts association leave by school districts, SB150-Would require the retention of students not reading at grade level, HB42-Allows school districts to extend teacher provisional status to five years. (unecessary)

You can go to www.utea.org and click on the "Under the Dome" for more updates and information.

Rick

Budget Projections Less Bleak

Headlines in the Salt Lake Tribune today paint a slightly better picture of the budget problems this year. Read at www.sltrib.com

The revenue projections, released yesterday, allow for another $50 Million that the legislature won't have to cut from the budget. That still leaves a lot of holes in the budget (around $700 Million) The big questions to answer still are: Tax Increases (doubtful, unless on cigarettes), Use of the Rainy Day funds (we will get some, but not all), and, of course, cuts to programs, personnel, furlough days, increased class sizes, smaller salaries and other draconian solutions.

We can expect those three retirement bills to see the light of day in the Senate either tomorrow or Friday. Not much hope of stalling them in the Senate, but we hope for some slowing in the House.

Rick

SL Tribune Points out Missing Senator at Retirement Hearing

Today's Salt Lake Tribune details the fact that Sen. Jon Greiner failed to attend the retirement committee meeting both Wednesday and Friday. He said that he had other meetings to attend, but then said that he had promised Sen. Liljenquist that he would not vote against the bills in committee. The vote was 3-2 and his vote would have stalled the bill with a 3-3 vote. He did say that he was against two of the three bills. He hopefully will speak and vote against it on the floor of the senate.

Rick