3 minute read
Where will your road lead you?
Director's View
Dr. Vic Wilson, Executive Director, CLAS
I hope this issue of CLAS School Leader finds you well. The legislative session has wound down now with the legislature adjourning sine die on May 9, 2024. Chief among these is the ETF Budget which was sent to Governor Ivey on the last day of the legislative session. Overall, we are reasonably happy with this budget.
The ETF budget contains a two percent raise for educational employees; an increase in the ETF for assistant principals in elementary and middle schools with 300+ students; funding for principal and assistant principal stipends; funding for new principal mentors; and more. We had hoped to get assistant principal funding for all schools with more than 250 students. That overall amount was too high, but we were able to get movement in the right direction. Hopefully, this will be increased in years to come.
The 2024 session has been good in many ways, and not so good in others. It does depend on perspective. From my perspective, education took several funding hits this year. The CHOOSE Act passed early in the session. This act creates an Educational Savings Account (ESA) for students who want to attend a qualified private, parochial, or home school. The amount is $7,000 for private and parochial schools and $2,000 for a home school student. This act will go into effect in the fall of 2025 and will cost a minimum $100 million from the ETF annually. In addition to this act, several bills passed that give tax credits for certain goods and/or entities. Each credit comes at the expense of the ETF. In fact, the credits and/or cuts from the previous two legislative sessions total in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the ETF. With ETF receipts coming in flat, this does not bode well for future budgets.
We have a convention coming up! I hope you have made plans for Mobile for June 10-12, 2024. We are ready to get on the road because “All Roads LEAD to Learning.” As always, we have some great speakers lined up for you. Dr. Sanders has worked hard to get some great speakers and presenters, and everyone at CLAS has worked to ensure that the convention experience will be fabulous for those who attend.
I look forward to networking with old friends and new at the convention, and I know you feel the same way. We want to learn and laugh at high levels during the convention, and we can’t do that without you being there. So, if you have not done so, visit the CLAS Convention website and sign up for the 2024 Summer CLAS Convention where “All Roads LEAD to Learning!”
See you soon!
Sincerely,Vic
