Palm Beach County Education Commission
Member Agency 2005 Priority Legislative Issues

Common to all Organizations

• Fully fund programs and services essential to Palm Beach County residents and do not give local agencies any unfunded mandates.

Education Institutions

Florida Atlantic University
• Undergraduate Financial Assistance - $2.5 million – to provide appropriate levels of need-based and merit-based student financial aid to attract and retain high-achieving minority students and to maintain diversity.
• Critical state workforce needs for teachers, nurses, and engineering and technology experts - $5 million – to pursue priorities set by Florida Board of Governors to address critical shortage of nurses and teachers in Florida.

Palm Beach Community College
• Enrollment Funding – to increase funding statewide by 5% in order to meet student and prospective employer needs.
• Jobs for Florida’s Futures Grant – to obtain $750,000 to support a new biotechnology program, and a combined child care and English language program,

School Board of Palm Beach County
• District Cost Differential (DCD) – to restore the DCD to prior year formula and recognize in formula higher costs, particularly in housing, and cost of living in Palm Beach and other south Florida counties, than in other areas of the state.
• School Funding – to provide at least a 5% increase in Base Student Allocation (BSA) per pupil funds to run and operate schools. For 2005-2006, in addition to the constitutional mandate of class size reduction and mandates imposed by the Florida Legislature.

Local Government/Special Taxing Districts

Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County (CSC)

• Universal PreKindergarten – to support a high quality universal prekindergarten program; fund child care needs, particularly for children from birth to 3, and reinstate the “at risk” eligibility category for school readiness.
• Florida KidCare – to fund fully Florida’s KidCare program and to remove any barriers to enrollment; maintain Medicaid coverage of pregnant women from 150% to 180% of poverty level; and maintain the Medicaid program.

(Note: CSC also has positions of no unfunded mandates and local flexibility)

Health Care District of Palm Beach County
• Sunshine Law Exemption/Healthy Palm Beaches – to actively maintain exemption from Florida’s sunshine law for (HMO) Health Palm Beaches Quality Assurance committee meetings, same as now provided for public hospitals.
• Trauma Funding – to support an additional $20 fine for seat belt violations to increase funding for trauma care; support motorist ticketing for failure to wear seat belts; lobby for an additional fund source to cover costs of out-of-county patient trauma care.

(Note: HCD has several issues to be monitored or tracked for implications)

Palm Beach County Commission
• Article V – to encourage further progress in implementation of (constitutional amendment) Revision 7 with the state funding of the court system. Address outstanding issues related to information technology, communications, personnel transfers and local options. Prevent efforts to shift more responsibilities to the local level as this is a state matter;
• Lake Region Water Treatment Plant – to obtain $2.5 million toward replacement of three existing, aging water treatment plants serving the western communities with a regional, 10-million-gallon-daily plant to serve the South Bay, Belle Glade and Pahokee communities.

Palm Beach County League of Cities
• Growth Management and Infrastructure Funding – to identify resources from local, state and federal sources to improve substandard infrastructure areas and to achieve equity in delivery of services to all citizens.
• Code Enforcement Fines – to add code enforcement fines as liens to property tax bills of delinquent homeowners as a tool to clean up substandard neighborhoods

(Note: League has related positions on unfunded mandates, Universal PreK and District Cost Differential)

Community Agencies

Business Development Board of Palm Beach County
(Pending)

Chambers of Commerce

Palm Beach County Chambers of Commerce subscribe to the Florida Chamber of Commerce legislative program (www.flchamber.com). Top issues of the state Chamber for 2005 include:

• Constitutional Amendments – to alleviate problems associated with the recent proliferation of proposed constitutional amendments;
• Workforce – to fund jobs for Florida’s Future, a workforce training program for the state’s community colleges; support universal PreK as a meaningful part of the state’s K-20 agenda; and to increase high school graduation rates to better prepare students for degrees in key fields such as science and engineering.

Economic Council of Palm Beach County
(Priorities are being set collaboratively with the Regional Business Alliance, to be completed by January 24th .)

Urban League of Palm Beach County
(No specific proposals at this time; general interest in the areas of crime prevention and budget allocations for related programs)

State Mandated Alliance

Criminal Justice Commission
• Teen Court Fees – to support the option for county commissions to adopt an ordinance levying a court fee against persons found guilty of criminal law, ordinance or traffic offenses with proceeds going to fund teen courts—similar legislation existed prior to 2003 that Palm Beach and other counties used to fund teen courts whose data showed reductions in juvenile crime offenses.

(Note: Other priorities pending)

Workforce Alliance, Inc., of Palm Beach County
• Workforce Funding – to ensure and to fund a systematic, sequential curriculum for secondary career education and postsecondary adult vocational (PSAV) programs and fund state DOE recommendations related to Jobs for Florida’s Future.
• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) – to maximize TANF funding for local workforce boards to enable them to assist employers hiring workers who need upgraded skills. Regional funding needs of state formulas should be determined before appropriations are made.

(Note: Workforce Alliance also has positions of support for funding of other education programs and to require state contracts be written to encourage hiring through the One Stop Career Centers.)

School Readiness Coalition (including CSC, Health Care District, School Board)
• Universal PreK – to provide a high quality program for prekindergarten children including a series of program requirements and to appropriate funding for four (4) core hours of daily curricular activities.
• Mandates – to oppose unfunded mandates or financial “buck passing” by the state and federal governments. Unfunded mandates include stagnant funding in a growth area when more services are required with the same or fewer dollars.

Federal Issues of Concern

• Education Funding – to support Congressional funding that provides 1)a $2.5 billion increase for special education (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act/IDEA) as originally envisioned in 1975; 2) $1 billion for Title I (No Child Left Behind), and 3) maintain, with a 3% increase, funding for vocational Perkins Act grants, Eisenhower Grants, etc. Oppose administrative plans to cut education spending.

• Reauthorization of Perkins, WIA, and Higher Education Acts – to re-enact all three programs in 2005; to support a federal seamless approach to workforce development that sequences high school, community college, workforce and higher education curricula for productive employment and promotes high level, high wage jobs.

• Reconciliation of AYP Requirements – to support Florida’s Congressional delegation to seek elimination of conflicts in student and teacher accountability requirements between Florida’s A+ Plan and the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. At issue are conflicting and differing requiremens for calculation of Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) by which students, teachers, schools and school districts are measured.

For additional information, please contact individual agencies directly for details regarding their legislative priorities.