Interested in the most recent legislative hot topics?  The latest updates are below!

Date and Topic of Update	Download
Friday, March 5, 2010 Legislative Update	Click HERE to download
Thursday, March 11, 2010 School Readiness & VPK Budget Cut Update	Click HERE to download
Thursday, March 18, 2010 - Urgent Letter to Providers Regarding VPK Budget Attachments to Letter	Click  HERE to download Sample Letter to Legislator House & Senate Contacts
Friday, March 19, 2010 Update   The House TEDA Committee has restored the 2.5 million in GR to keep school readiness whole.  The Senate TEDA Committee meets on Monday and they currently have us with a 3.5 million cut so the two committees are not to far apart.  More on Monday about that.   Please find attached the Legislative Update for the 3rd week of Session.  Action from this week is bolded and italicized in the right-hand column.  Most of the focus has been on budget, thus you will see movement on only a few bills of interest.  Of special interest is movement on the SB 2014 (Wise) with 4 amendments (I've attached those amendments).   In order to fully understand the amendment, please pull out the original bill that I've also attached and look at line insertions from the amendment.  In addition, there was movement on SB 1216 with 2 amendments (also attached).  This is the bill that will dramatically alter Children's Services Councils.    On the federal front, sad news - the Senate stripped the Early Learning Challenge Fund from the Higher Ed bill.  Ed Committee chairs are talking about other possible vehicles but it's really not clear whether that's possible.  The Senate Agriculture committee released the Chairman's Mark of the Child Nutrition Act (markup next week) and it has some positive things but it does not include opportunities to increase access to preschool CACFP.  A bit of good news - there was a vote yesterday on an amendment that sought to freeze discretionary spending in such a way that would have made it extremely difficult to get the proposed increase in CCDBG and Head, and it failed.	Click HERE to download
Tuesday, March 23, 1010 Update The House Full Appropriations Council on Education and Economic Development met this morning on the budget. Representative Flores presented the PreK-12 Education budget to the Council. The presentation included an amendment to the VPK budget, which passed unanimously. The House budget proposal now allocates $402.3 million for VPK. This would reduce the VPK per child spending by 1% in alignment with K-12 funding (FEFP) reductions of .74% providing equity in reductions for education programs. Additionally the amendment preserves quality indicators by maintaining the current year ratio and group size of 1:10 and 2:18. At least 30 VPK providers were in attendance, along with a number of ELC executive directors, early childhood advocates, and representation from our Agency.  Harry Duncanson and Susan Main delivered very powerful testimony in support of the amendment, as did a few provider representatives. Many others waived their time in support of the amendment. The current Senate budget proposal remains at $350.5 million with a change in ratio and group size to 1:12 and 2:24. This change includes the requirement of an assistant for any class that has between 13 and 20 children; and a secondary instructor with a CDA if the class has between 21 and 24 children. The House and Senate VPK budget proposals no longer closely align, which means there is time for continued education of the implications for budget reductions to the program. Additional information will be available on Monday.
Friday, March 26, 2010 Update	Click HERE to download.
Friday, April 9, 2010 Update	Click HERE to download.
Friday, April 23, 2010 Update	Click HERE to download.