Alaska Legislature: House Finance, 4/21/26, 9am

Okay, I'll call this meeting, the House Finance Committee, to order and let the record reflect that the time is currently now 7:00 AM on Tuesday, April 21st, uh, 2026, and present today. We've got Representative Allard and Representative Moore, Representative Bynum, Representative Kocher-Schragg. Looks like Kocher-Josephson is in Senate Finance, must be for another bill. We have with us also Representative Galvin and myself, Kocher-Foster. And just a reminder, folks can mute their cell phones.

And we have one bill before us today, it's actually a resolution, that is Senate Joint Resolution 29. That is the constitutional amendment on education funding, and this is the introduction hearing. We also have with us Representative Jimmy, and so we'll hear from the sponsor, uh, we'll review the fiscal notes, and we have also with us Representative Tomaszewski and Representative Hannan. And so with that, um I'd like to invite up Senator Hoffman's staff, Mr. Tim Gruesendorf, if you could come up to the table and put yourself on the record and begin the presentation. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, my name is Tim Gruesendorf, staff to Senator Hoffman on the Senate Finance Committee. We appreciate the House Finance Committee taking time to listen to this, hear this resolution today.

I think the resolution is fairly simple in its drafting. It does, it does a couple things. It proposes an amendment to Article 9 of the Alaska Constitution, creating a new section in the Constitution to allow the legislature to create an education fund separate as a separate fund in the Treasury. The money in the fund may be appropriated only for public education. And then the second thing that it does is if the resolution passes by two-thirds majority of both bodies, it will bypass the administration and go straight to the public for to vote on it to see if they think that this dedicated fund would be worth putting in the state's constitution.

And that describes the bill. All right, nice and simple. Thank you. Question, you mentioned two-thirds. —Of the legislature before it goes to a vote of the people.

Is that two-thirds of each body separately or combined two-thirds? I think it's of each body separately. Okay. And actually, I don't know if there might be somebody— just so folks know, we do have Carol Beecher, Director, Division of Elections, online. We have Pam Leary, Director of the Treasury Division, online.

But, yeah, maybe if you could just find out and get confirmation on that. Do we have any other questions of the committee? Representative Bynum and then Galvin. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, thank you very much for bringing this forward.

Good discussion to have. My biggest question really is about the functionality of putting this in the Constitution and creating this separate fund. Currently, right now, we already have in statute an education fund that we can put money into to use for the purposes of education. I do know that it is obviously subject to appropriation. It is subject to the will of the legislature.

But I'm just trying to understand functionally the difference on why we would be creating a constitutional education fund as opposed to just utilizing the existing fund that we have now. Mr. Gruessendorf. Through the Chair, Representative Bynum, the purpose is to— education is important. You know, a lot of people talk about it being their number one priority when they come down here. I think creating a fund that can only be used for education is important.

Like, like you see, the other funds are upon appropriation. You could appropriate other things. This is strictly for education. And as the state legislature decides to start talking about new revenues, potentially in the future, You can throw some of those, a percentage of it, into this fund and it will be there strictly for education only. And that, I believe, that just shows the people of the state that education is a priority to not only the legislature but also to, you know, to the constituents if they choose to vote for this resolution.

So quick follow-up. Follow-up. Thank you.

Through the chair, the— once we have this fund, let's assume that this would go to the voters, the voters say it's great, we put the fund or make it available. Would there be the concept that we'd want to basically make this like a permanent fund type of fund that generates its own revenue by the money we put into it, like much like the higher ed fund now, or would it be just that it's the money is protected only for the use of education when we put the money into it? Well, I mean— or both? Oh, through the chair, Representative Bynum. I mean, it's up to the legislature how they want to— what they want to use it for.

I'm not sure that— it's going to take a long time to build up an endowment size to make a 4.5% draw. They'll make any difference to fully funding education. I mean, I just don't think that it will take a long time for that to happen. I mean, if there was a huge spike in oil and all of a sudden, like back in the last time we had a big spike, you know, when we were dumping billions into the CBR, you know, that would be a good start. But I would view it more along the lines of what we're doing now.

There is funding through education through the general fund. But you can fund extra outside as needed, and that would be up to the legislature to decide to either put it in or just let it sit there. Thank you. Okay. Representative Galvin and then myself.

Representative Galvin. Thank you. I think that I can certainly see how important it is to send a message that we care about investing in Education, I appreciate that. I just had a couple of questions with regard to what the vision was. I appreciated hearing whether or not it was to act like sort of an endowment kind of account or something separately.

I— and sounds like that vision was just up to whatever the legislature wanted to do. But my other questions that I had was just operations.

The timing isn't in here. And this may be a question for Ms. Beecher, but I wanted to know, if we were to pass it by May 20th, then when would it get to the ballot? And that was my first question. Okay. And Ms. Beecher, if you could put yourself on the record and answer the question.

Good morning. This is Carol Beecher, Director of the Division of Elections. Through the chair, Representative, um, Galvin, according to statute, AS 155030, constitutional amendment propositions are put on the next statewide general election ballot. So it would go on the general election ballot in this November? Yes, correct.

Okay, thank you. And is it— my understanding is that it For that ballot, so for the body here in the building to pass it, it would take a two-thirds vote. But for the ballot initiative, it's a simple majority. Is that correct? Okay.

I'm seeing your head shake yes. Thank you. Thank you. And then if I may, co-chair. Just for the record, that was Mr. Gruessendorf.

Representative Galvin. Thank you. The next question was what your vision was with regard to the spend. When we say public education, or in this case, is the thought that it would be maintenance and operating for public education? And is it just K-12 or is it pre-K and university?

Are we thinking just K-12 system? So I asked you two questions in there, sorry. The first one was maintenance and operating. Is that the vision that it would be to cover whatever? Within both of those?

And then the second question is the scope of the student population. Mr. Gruessendorf. Through the Chair, Representative McGowan. The original view was that it could be used for both education, both for the school and for maintenance and construction. I think both of them, even if you have a school fall down or something, you need some extra money, that would be a place you could potentially pull it from.

And the second— oh, this was that second question? The scope, is it early learning as well as K-12, university? What was the vision for that? Through the chairperson, Gelman, it was K-12. Okay.

So some of our K-12 funding is spent toward early learning opportunities. There is some pre-K money right now that goes through DEED and some money to support families in gaining more skills for the 3, 4-year-olds, for example. And right now that's not the vision of this fund. Mr. Gruessendorf. Through the Chair, Representative Gelvin, it wasn't talked about a whole bunch.

I mean, I That would still be up to legislature and what people consider public education. I think maybe the Department of Law can get in there and say, well, we think this is public education. But the original thought was K-12. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Then my comment is just thank you for this.

I'm excited for the big drop of money to go into that because it would be a wise thing to do. Once we get rich. Thank you.

In, uh, in the lineup, I've got myself and then Rup Sena Srage, Bynum, Tomczewski. And, uh, my question is, um, once you have the endowment created, would it be similar to the permanent fund where you have a corpus that cannot be touched, or would we be able to access the corpus at any time if we wanted to overdraw because you had mentioned the draw rate could be 4%, 4.5%. So, but as you know, we're also talking about possibly combining right now the ERA and the corpus and having just a slightly different structure where you still wouldn't be able to, you know, just go in and raid the fund. You'd still have to follow the POMV. So would there be a corpus that you cannot touch, or how would that work?

Representative Foster, Mr. Chairman, Tim Gruesendorf for the record. It right now it's not an endowment. It's just a fund that you guys, that the legislature can pull money out of for education.

I don't know where in it there creates an endowment or any rules for an endowment that could be up to the legislature in the future. But right as, as the bill is written right now, That's not contemplated. Okay, so ideally it would have a draw rate of, say, 4.5%, but we could overdraw if we wanted. Is that correct? Through the chair, uh, there wouldn't be an overdraw.

There's no percentage. It's, it's a fund there, and you guys, the legislature, can burn it all. Okay. I mean, if they needed all the money for something in a certain session You get the votes to do it and the money can be spent. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Next we have got Representative Sharkey, then Bynum, Tomczewski. Representative Sharkey. Yeah.

Thanks, Co-Chair Foster. I will probably have a couple questions and some follow-up if that is appropriate. I just wanted to clarify some of what the fund is because I think there is some confusion. Most people are familiar with the permanent fund and the draw rate that what we have from there, the POMB, the 5% that we so often hear about, and that kind of recommended spend level that we've put in statute. They're familiar with the dividend that kind of draws out of that in theory.

And I think a lot of that crosses over when we're talking about the public education fund. So a couple of questions. All this resolution would do is establish a fund, a parking lot essentially for money in the Constitution. And so that, that fund is created in the Constitution, but there's no money being put into it. There's no formulaic spend.

There's no 5% recommendation. It's just a parking lot to be able to put money that can then be used for public education. Is that correct, Mr. Gruzenorf? Through the chair, Representative Strzok, yes, that is correct. Okay.

And how is public education defined as of right now in the resolution, or is it defined? It sounds like it's maybe fairly ethereal right now. Mr. Griesendorf. Through the Chair, Representative Schrag, it is not defined. OK.

So I think one of the questions that I have is, and I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you all, is what is the benefit of having this parking lot, established in the Constitution for public education.

Mr. President, Mr. Chair, Representative Sharkey, the benefit is that as new revenues come in, if that's what you choose to do, or you can even take some of the other education funds that are out there and deposit them in this fund, you know that they're not going to be used for any other purpose other than public education. And that could be widely defined. There are ways that you can work through this bill where the legislature does have a little more input on how the money is used.

You could say that the legislature gets to decide by law, and if that's in the bill, then you can come back and as a legislature you can decide how you want it used. And it's not like a normal statute. It, uh, because it says that in the Constitution, the legislature can't ignore that. They can change the law, but they can't ignore the law like, um, sometimes you've seen the legislature do that in the past.

Okay, I'm not sure I fully agree with that aspect of it, but I think that'd be for— that would probably come under discussion and debate on a bill that sets how we spend some of that parking lot that we'd be establishing with this resolution. But I did agree with the first part, which is that you could park money there and know with certainty that those funds can only be used for public education. I would maybe contrast that with the higher Education Fund or the Public Education Fund, we could today, if we had a big windfall or money's coming in the door, we could put money there, but there's nothing that would stop a future legislature or even our current legislature from them taking those monies and putting it towards public safety or a big new sports arena or anything else really, right? There's no, just because we call it a higher education fund, we're not constrained in being able to appropriate those funds elsewhere. And so I think one of the key benefits I agree with you on is that by establishing this fund in the Constitution, when we put money there, we know that because that constitutional fund says that money can only be used for public education, I know that that money is going to go towards public education.

Now, that definition is still a little bit loose, but it's better than what we have today, which is I put that money in the higher education fund and I can use it to pay for anything. And I think we saw some of that last year where we temporarily used some of that to cover just normal expenses. So I think I've covered what I want to cover for right now. And thank you, Foster, for the time. Okay.

In the lineup, I've got Representative Bynum, Tom Shevsky, myself, Moore, and Galvin. Representative Bynum. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Do we know— is there anybody online from legal? Nobody from legal.

We've got elections and treasury. Okay. The reason why I'm asking is because when I look at the language that we're using here, and maybe this is through the chair to the sponsor, the— or the intent of the sponsor is that this language says that the legislature may create an education fund. And then it says money in the education fund may be appropriated only for purposes of public education. So the way I'm reading this, when we look at the Constitution, the Constitution basically says we don't create dedicated funds.

This would become an exception to that. But it says that the legislature may create the education fund. So if we may create it, is it not then at our discretion that we may remove it? I mean, we could, by a vote of 21-11 and the governor signing a bill, say we're going to just get rid of it. Is that— this isn't a shall, this is just that we may be able to do this.

Is that accurate? Mr. Gruessendorf. Through the chair, Representative Bynum, I wouldn't say it's— I would say that once it gets voted by the people of the state, I don't think the legislature can just come in and remove— to say the legislature shall create the fund if it doesn't pass by two-thirds, I mean, it's making you do something that you haven't passed. So I think may as a— I've talked with Marie Marks a little bit about this and the Art Bloods legal. And may is the correct word to use.

It's been used for other constitutional amendments like this in the past. I think it's just a word they use versus shall. Right. Representative Bynum. My understanding is what we would be voting on here and sending to the voters is that we're going to amend the Constitution to add Section 18 education fund.

Section 18 specifically says the legislature may create a fund. And so that's why I guess a legal question would be from Ledge Legal or whoever could answer that question. Is this just giving the legislature the ability to establish a dedicated fund, but it's at our discretion to do so? Because I don't see that it's asking the voters to say we shall create a specific fund for this purpose. It's just giving the authority to the legislature to create a dedicated fund.

Do is I see my trusty staff back there shaking his head, writing furiously. He's working on having ledge legal here. Thank you. Next meeting, I think. That was my question.

Okay, uh, so let's see, next, Representative Tomaszewski. Thank you, Coach Foster. Uh, thanks for being here. What I really like about this resolution is it's one page, so not a whole lot to dig into here. Um, my question is definitely on the public education definition.

Definition in this. What exactly? And I think we've already established that you don't exactly have the answer for that, so that's probably something we'll have to have a definite answer to. What is the definition of public education? Does that include homeschooling, charter schools, because I know charter school is a public education.

So my other question is how many other education funds are there right now?

Mr. Gruessendorf. Through the Chair, Representative Tomaszewski. Right now the two funds that I'm aware of are the Public School Trust Fund, which contributes about $36 million to this year's education, and it supplants general funds. The bulk of it is general funds. For education.

Public School Trust Fund is basically the first money into the pot at $36 million, and then so it's supplanting the general funds. And then we have the Dividend Raffle, and that right now isn't contributing much because it is an endowment and there isn't really enough in the endowment to have a distribution. But it does have that— there's a little section in there where it's contributing $467,000 of the raffle fund is appropriated, and that is not supplanting general funds, but in addition to general funds. But those are the only two major funds that, besides the general fund, that fund education. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] Can I follow up?

[Speaker:DR. WRIGHT] Follow up. [Speaker:DR. BOLL] So I'm curious though, it doesn't seem like this resolution creating this education fund dedicated in the Constitution is much different than these two, than the Public School Trust Fund. I mean, is that Public School Trust Fund, the legislature can just get in there and appropriate that to anything or no? Mr. Gruesenberg. Chair, Representative Townsend, it's a dedicated fund.

In the Constitution. It was created before statehood and it was allowed into the Constitution. So no, it's— it has rules. It's a 5% P-1V based on a 5-year average of the fund. So we have that in the Constitution now.

Why— what would be the difference between that one and this new one that you want to create? I guess I'm confused on that. It seems like you already have that in there. What's going to be the main difference? Mr. Kruzendorf.

Through the Chair, Representative Tomaszewski. The difference is that this was brought in from prior to statehood and put in the Constitution. And when I talked with our alleged legal about that, and they said there was a— for the reasons when they brought this in, the state now we can't change it without losing it was a land grant and without losing all the work that was done to create that original fund, if the state stepped in and tried to change it and let's just say we were— the state was going to throw money into that, it would change the original intent of the fund when it was brought into the Constitution. They just— they did not recommend trying to use this instead of creating a new one because it had already been in place and it already has— federal ties because there was land transferred and all that, and it would change the dynamics of the original public school trust fund. So follow-up.

Follow-up. So then, what would be the purpose of this trust fund? Mr. Kiffmeyer.

If we can't, if we're gonna be able to just, raid that fund at any time? Because it was kind of— that was kind of the discussion I thought you had just a moment ago, that there was no set amount of draw for each year. The— it would just be available for appropriation. I don't understand where it would be much different than, than any other fund that we have that the legislature can appropriate money from. Mr. Gruzenbauer, through the chair, Representative Tomaszewski, it's I would say the difference is that it's a dedicated fund and as revenues come in in the future, or like I say, some of these other education funds we have, they can— or if you have money left over at the end of the year, instead of spending it on supplemental, you put it into this fund and then the people and the public know it's for education only.

And so sometimes when we're just— when the bodies are discussing new revenues, some folks in the public would like to know if you're doing that and they're told that, you know, some of this will be dedicated to this fund and it will go to education, they're more at ease with the discussions around new revenues.

OK, and just one other question. So what is the proposed funding to— what is the seed money for this fund? What do you propose, or what is the intended way to fund this in the future? How do we— how much money are you going to start with in it, and where's that money going to come from? Mr. Gruesener, through the chair.

Representative Tomaszewski, right now there's— first of all, we have to create the fund. So there is no funding included with this. It would be— I think it would be putting the cart before the horse if we said, oh, here's some money. Now, by the way, you know, we're going to put it to the vote of the people to see if we're putting this money there right now or not. So there is no funding.

Funding source at this point right now? Just an open account? Dedicated. Okay, thank you. Okay, I've got two separate questions.

The first one is going to have to do with the CBR sweep, and we're talking about dedicated funds just now. The other question will be just regarding the universe of funding options that we have for education, and I might direct this to both you as well as Ms. Pam Leary over at Treasury. And so the first question regarding the CBR sweep, you said one of the main benefits of having this bill pass is that it would be a dedicated fund. So we know that other funds that are not dedicated, for example, I think like Smoking Cessation Fund, every year technically those are all supposed to be swept into the CBR and then we unsweep them and put them back. But that is not always guaranteed.

There was one year, years ago, when we did have an issue where funds were not swept and we had to go through a lot of work to undo that. But maybe if you could talk a little bit about why that's important and why having a fund that's dedicated as opposed to a fund that's not. And I think I pretty much maybe explained it, but I'm just checking to see if there's anything I missed. Maybe, Mr. Gussendorf?

Chairman, no, you were correct. And because it's a separate— it's a separate account within the Treasury, that keeps it from being sweepable. So you're right, it is protected in that way. The legislature— there have been court cases on what's sweepable and what's not. And typically when you create a new fund within the Treasury, you can dictate that whether it's sweepable or not.

The basic general funds are sweepable. You know, some of the older accounts we have, they all can be swept and then put back or whatever. But no, I think you pretty much hit it. The reason for having this fund is a place to dedicate money for public education. [Speaker:ED] Okay, great, thanks.

The other question The other question I have is regarding the— and by the way, we've got Marie Marks online, so we'll come back to the legal question in a moment here. My other question was just the universe of funding options that we have for education. And maybe I'm looking to my staff, Mr. Brody Anderson, and maybe we could come up with a little chart, work with you on something, because just from a very basic level, we've got the BSA, base student allocation. That's the primary way in which we fund education. And then what was mentioned already was the Public School Trust Fund, and you had mentioned that $36 million this year would go towards that.

You know, in this chart, I'm just envisioning something like this year we spent X amount on education, and so then you could see Public School Trust Fund is a fairly small portion of the need at $36 million. We've got the Higher Education Fund, but we know that that's for scholarships, but that is another education-related funding mechanism. We have other things that are maybe not along— for example, the school— new school construction fund. That's another funding mechanism. We've got the school major maintenance fund.

We have school bond debt reimbursement. We've got the REAA school funding. I'm wondering if there's anything just off the top of your head that you know of that we use to fund education. I think I've pretty much hit most of them, but I'm just checking to see if there's anything else I've missed.

Mr. Chairman, no, that's the ones you mentioned are the ones that are— that I'm aware of. Okay. And Ms. Pam Leary, just along those lines, my question is, I know that there is what we call the parking garage, the AHFC money. I don't think that has anything really to do with education, but I'm just curious curious if we have used that in the past to take money from there and put towards education. And Ms. Pam Leary, if you could put yourself on the record.

This is Pam Leary, the Treasury Director. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Great. Um, I am not aware whether AHFC has provided school funding in the traditional sense of the BSA or public school trust. Okay, thanks. And the only reason I bring that up is because it's just one of those funds that we kind of use for all kinds of things. We call it informally the parking garage because it's where money just gets parked sometimes to use for various things.

And so I was just curious about that. So I do have in the lineup, um, absent of more and Representative Galvin, then we'll come back to Representative Bynum's question. We've got Maria Marks online with Ledge Legal. So, Representative Moore. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Through the chair, thanks for being here. I think, I think most of my questions were answered through Co-Chair Shiragi, but I have just maybe some, maybe just a curious question. Did the sponsor talk about defining public education within the resolution? Was there any kind of conversation questions about that in Senate Finance? And, um, or maybe some guardrails on the percent of draw or anything like that?

Mr. Gruesendorf. Through the chair, Representative Moore. No, they didn't have— they didn't define public education. I believe it's defined in statute someplace. I probably should have grabbed that from my notes, but I don't have it in front of me.

Um, there wasn't— the only discussion on the, the draw side of it was Right now it's a simple majority, and the reason it's written the way it is right now for a simple majority is that we didn't want this fund to become a tool for leverage. We wanted education to be the majority. We'll decide how, and who knows who's going to be in the majority and all that, but it will be a majority to use the money and it won't be used as a, you know, to leverage any certain group for any certain reason. It's for education and they thought the best way for that money to be spent would be by, you know, whoever's in the majority in either body to get together and decide what would be best for education. OK, thank you.

I appreciate it. OK, next up, Representative Galvin.

Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. Through the chair, I think this may be a question for Ms. Remarks. I have had a hiccup in a bill that I've been trying to work through, and one of the hiccups I think may be fixed by this particular piece. So, and, and it's likely not to go anywhere, but I want to make sure that I understand the operations of this.

I had a, a bill that was specifically called a tax education, education tax bill, and we had to make amendments to it because there's always been this thing that you can't call something for edu— that the money will go toward education because you can't allocate to a particular fund for certain. And I appreciated that, so we had to change— there was an amendment made to change all of that. And I'm wondering, I think Ms. Marks may have worked on that bill. I know it was going to bring just the head tax alone over $30 million. $150 Each year.

So, and that's for every Alaskan pitching in $150. So I just wanted to hear from Ms. Marks. If this were in place, then could we put in legislation like that without changing the title? And then would that, those funds be dedicated and would that be legal, I guess, is what I'm hoping to hear. Ms. Marks, could you put yourself on the record?

Yes, for the record, this is Maureen Mars with Legislative Legal Services. Through the chair to Representative Galvin, the short answer to your question is no, the funding source would not be able to be dedicated. Um, the tax bill you referenced, and I believe it was worked on by Emily Nauman in our office. Yes. Is a separate funding stream into the Constitutional Education Fund.

What the resolution does is it protects the money once the legislature places it into the fund. So once it's in the fund, that money then can only be taken out for the purpose of public education, but it does not allow the dedication of a certain stream of revenue such as a tax into the fund. If it is the legislature's intent to dedicate a stream of revenue or allow for the dedication of a stream of revenue, then SGR 29 would need to be amended to explicitly authorize that dedication of a funding source.

Okay, thank you. And I have a follow-up. Representative Dalton. So how do we get funds into it, um, what, what sort of a mechanism would that take? How, how many votes to get money into that fund?

Again, for the record, this is Marie Marks with Legislative Legal Services. Through the chair, Representative Galvin, it would be either through appropriation of money or transfer of land. Appropriation would be like any other appropriation bill, which It takes a majority of each of the houses of the legislature, and the land transfer would be done through a non-appropriation bill transferring that land, again by the majority vote of the legislature, to put the land and the money into the fund. Okay, thank you. And so one follow-up, if I may, just to be perfectly clear then, a bill then that would say, okay, we're going to collect funds for education, that would mean that, that those funds would come into the state coffers, but then we would need to reallocate those funds to this fund by a majority vote in order for them to be there.

And it could be done then, the way you're making it sound, it could be done immediately.

Yes. Again, for the allocation, for the record remarks with Legislative Legal Services, uh, through the chair, yes, Representative Gelvin, the legislature may but would not have to appropriate money into the fund, including money from an education tax or other revenue that the legislature would like to appropriate from. Okay, thank you. And if I may, uh, co-chair, then My understanding is, back to the parking lot talk, then what we're doing here is establishing a dedicated parking lot. And if you could confirm this, I'd be grateful.

That would be unsweepable.

Ms. Marks. Sure. For the record, Mary Marks, Legislative Legal Services. Through the chair, Representative Galvin, correct. Once the money is in the fund, appropriated into the fund by the legislature, that money is protected and may only be taken out for the purpose of public education.

With regard to whether it is sweepable, the amendment places it as a separate fund in the state treasury. That language, um, has not been addressed by the Alaska Supreme Court, but as you're all aware, there's an Anchorage Superior Court that addressed what is sweepable and what is not sweepable. And the court noted that when money is in a separate fund of the state treasury, it is not sweepable. And so I think that Anchorage Superior Court decision is very persuasive. I think a likely— a court would similarly find that this money in the state treasury is not sweepable, um, again because it's not in the general fund.

Okay, thank you. Okay, uh, Representative Bynum. Thank you. Chair Foster, through the chair, Ms. Marks, thank you for being here. I had a question earlier that specifically asked about the language that we have here.

It looks like that what would ultimately be voted on would be to amend the Constitution, add Section 18, Education Fund. And then here it says that the legislature may create an education fund. And so my question was, is if the legislature may create a fund, can we at our discretion zero the fund and remove it? Ms. Marks.

Yes, for the record, Mary Marks, Legislative Legal Services. Through the chair, rex inem, vinem— because it used the permissive 'may,' I think it's implied that it's discretionary. The legislature can establish it and the legislature can take it away. Of course, if you empty the funds, the money would have to be used for public education since it's protected for that purpose. However, if there's any question about it then the— then the committee might want to just make it clear in the amendment that the legislature may establish or repeal the fund.

But I think it's implied. There's no harm in making it explicit. Quick follow-up. Follow-up. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster.

Through the chair, Ms. Marks, the additional item— and maybe you answered this when Representative Galvin was asking her questions, but I just wanted to be clear— the last sentence in Section A says that Section 7— I'm sorry, the last sentence of this under A, it says that Section 7 of this article does not apply to land transfers or money appropriated to the fund or income earned in the fund. And specifically, Section 7 in the Constitution under Article 9 That is the dedicated funds section. Functionally, I wanted to understand what the impact of including the language saying the section, the dedicated funds section doesn't apply. Ms. Marks. Through the record, yeah, Marie Marks with Legislative Legal Services.

Through the chair, Representative Bynum, it allows the money in the fund to be dedicated for a specific purpose. So it expressly applies an exception to the dedication of the money in the fund. And you'll probably have already noticed that it's very similar to language regarding the Constitutional Budget Reserve Fund in Article IX, Section 17 of the Budget Reserve Fund, which similarly uses that language of Section 7 of this article does not apply to deposits made under the fund. So it kind of follows that formula. But you're correct.

It's to expressly allow a dedication of money for public education. Thank you. Okay, Representative Schrag. Thank you, Co-Chair Foster. I think question probably for the bill sponsor staff.

Question on process: if this is passed by the legislature, who drafts the sponsor statement that goes into the, uh, onto the ballot? Mr. Gruessendorf.

[Speaker:DR. BARRY] That, I'm not exactly sure. I think people will take different sides of that and they will choose someone to draft that up. I think the legislature might be able to even choose once it passes, or before it passes, who they want to write the pro and cons of the bill. [Speaker:DR. NELSON] Yeah. [Speaker:DR. BARRY] We've got the director Division of Elections if you'd like to ask.

Oh sure, that'd be great. Okay, uh, Ms. Carol Beecher, if you can put yourself on the record.

Thank you. Uh, for the record, Carol Beecher, Division of Elections. Um, according to statute, the Lieutenant Governor prepares the proposed ballot title and proposition for each of the amendments, and then as noted, then the pro and con statements can be provided.

And follow-up, if I may, Commissioner Foster. Rep. Sharkey. Thank you. Director Beecher, is it presumed that because the legislature chose to put the question on the ballot that the legislature is supportive of the effort and therefore the legislature writes the sponsor statement in support? And who in the legislature is tasked with that?

Is there statutory guidance or is that left up to the presiding officer? Or do you know? Ms. Beecher. Thank you.

Through the chair, Representative Sharkey, I do not know the answer to that, but I can find out from my staff. Okay, I'd be curious to know the answer to that. Thank you, Chair Foster. Okay, I don't see any further questions. I know that we all probably have to be somewhere in about 9 minutes, and so this might be the perfect time time to adjourn for today.

It sounds like we've got a couple questions that we'll come back to at another meeting. I do believe we actually have this bill up soon, possibly. What's— oh, today, today is Tuesday. Yes, we do have this bill up again at 1:30 today, so we'll come back to that. And just announcing the rest of the day, our next meeting is scheduled for today at 1:30, and at that meeting we'll hear an introduction introduction to House Bill 362, which is the Respiratory Care Licensure Bill.

We'll take public testimony on the bill that we just heard, which is the SJR 29 Education Funding. And so if there is nothing else to come for the committee, we'll be adjourned at 9:52 AM. Thank you.