Stacy Michaelson, (left) OSBA director of government relations and communications, joined education association peers Thursday, Jan. 23, to support a bill before the Senate Labor and Business Committee. (Photo by Jake Arnold, OSBA)
I gave my first public legislative testimony for OSBA on Thursday, the first week of hearings.
Somewhat tellingly about education advocacy’s broad reach, I sat before the Senate Labor and Business Committee to talk about the Public Employees Retirement System.
Certainly, the bulk of OSBA’s testimony is given in the Senate and House education committees, but bills that affect public education crop up in numerous legislative committees.
More than 2,400 bills have been introduced thus far, with more to come. We are still reading all those bills, looking for places we might need to watch developments or suggest amendments. At OSBA, we need to monitor not only education-specific bills, but proposals that may impact schools as employers, as public contractors and as local government bodies. In addition, we’re staying connected with national partners to monitor relevant changes at the federal level.
We at OSBA expect to track more than 600 bills this session, and we will be called to testify on many of those. We tap the deep well of OSBA staff and board member expertise beyond classroom education, weighing in on legal issues, policy questions and business concerns, such as insurance, technology, safety and facilities.
On Thursday morning, I was speaking in support of Senate Bill 849, which would give the PERS Board the flexibility to apply the roughly $89 million in the School Districts Unfunded Liability Fund to districts’ PERS expenses in a meaningful way. Currently, those funds would need to be amortized, reducing their immediate impact. At a time when districts are facing stark PERS rate increases, we are optimistic about the chance to work with the PERS Board to leverage those funds to best benefit districts.
We don’t expect a work session in which the bill can be advanced immediately, but it was nice to start the session with discussion of a bill that has the potential to directly improve school budgets.
It was also nice to work with some of our education association peers. Cynthia Branger Muñoz of the Oregon Education Association, Morgan Allen of the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, and Iris Hodge of the Oregon School Employees Association all testified Thursday in support.
Oregon’s education associations may not always agree how to do it, but we are united in wanting to improve Oregon’s public education system.
Stacy Michaelson
OSBA director of government relations and communications
