Muscogee County School Board releases tentative legislative priority recommendations

After meeting with members of the local legislative delegation, the Muscogee County School Board has released its tentative list of priority recommendations for the 2016 Georgia General Assembly, which starts Jan. 11.

Here is the list:

Release local school districts to pursue other health care options for their classified employees outside of the state health plan.

The plan is considered expensive for the district's lower-paid employees. Allowing school districts to form regional plans with other area school districts could save money for employees and school districts, according to the board's document.

Improve the Public School Employee Retirement Savings plan.

According the board's document, the plan "produces very little income" for long-service retirees from custodial, plant services, food services and bus driving positions. Other than redesigning the plan, no solution is proposed in the document.

Increase funding for staffing that supports compliance under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, due to the state's increasing number of students with exceptionalities and the complexity of the disabilities school districts must support.

According to the board's document, the funding formula doesn't provide enough money to cover the cost of speech, occupational and physical therapists, behavioral support and psychological assessments and services.

Support the addition of a referendum to the Nov. 8, 2016, related to the property tax freeze in Columbus.

By a 6-3 vote during its Oct. 19 meeting, the school board approved a resolution that requests the local delegation to ask the legislature for permission to place on the ballot Mayor Teresa Tomlinson's proposal to thaw the property tax freeze.

The board members who voted for the resolution are chairman Rob Varner of District 5, vice chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1, county-wide representative Kia Chambers, Athavia "A.J." Senior of District 3, Naomi Buckner of District 4 and Shannon Smallman of District 7. The board members who voted against the resolution are John Thomas of District 2, Mark Cantrell of District 6 and Frank Myers of District 8.

Commission a study of the state's dual-enrollment courses relative to content and end-of-course exams to ensure alignment and correlation.

Georgia Senate Bill 132, better known as the Move on When Ready Act, became effective July 1. MOWR is a dual-enrollment program for high school students to attend postsecondary institutions and simultaneously receive high school and college credit. The bill combined several dual-enrollment programs into one state funding source, which helps pay for tuition, fees and books.

MOWR already has expanded the number of dual-enrollment courses and students in Georgia, but the board's document expresses concern how the growth will affect school accountability measures, so "it is imperative that course content and end-of-course assessments are correlated and in alignment."

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272. Follow him on Twitter@MarkRiceLE.

This story was originally published October 27, 2015 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Muscogee County School Board releases tentative legislative priority recommendations ."