The Senate Education Committee advanced HB 26-1027, which allows BOCES executive directors to retire from PERA and return to work without losing benefits and enables BOCES to access postsecondary workforce readiness grant funds. The bill passed six to one with Senator Zamora Wilson casting the lone dissenting vote.
Senator Zamora Wilson asked whether individuals in training programs described by Tamara Durbin as part of BOCES succession planning would be able to tap into the PERA provision, or whether it was limited to those who had already retired. Senator Kolker responded that the provision is intended for those who retire and the position cannot be filled, to retain their experience. Senator Zamora Wilson ultimately voted 'Respectfully, no' — the only dissenting vote — but did not state an explicit reason for opposition on the record.
“Ms. Durbin. Senator Zamora WILSON thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm just thinking forward as far as problem solving. Do you have to mitigate these shortages? Are you, do you have any training programs to incentivize or bring people up to speed to get up to these positions? Ms. Durbin yes. So in rural areas, because we are faced with critical shortage in many capacities with teachers, with administration and with executive directors, we also are faced with this with specialized service providers”
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Sign in to subscribeYou know, suck up a little bit because it's my bill today, so. But we only going to hear one bill. I have HB 26 1027. I am the prime sponsor. So I will hand the gavel over to my vice chair, Senator Marchman, and I'm just going to present from here if everybody doesn't mind. Very good. Would you like to tell us about HB 26, 1027? Thank you. HB 26, 1027 started in the House, as you can can tell, and it passed through education there, I think unanimously. This is more of a cleanup to help out the board of Cooperative Educational Services executive directors who can retire from para and then come back if they're needed because we do have shortages in people filling these positions. We do this in our school districts with principals and superintendents. So at the BOCES level, we, you know, wanted to just make sure that's on par with what we're doing everywhere else. And the second part of the bill, it basically amends the statute from 25, 315, the post secondary and workforce readiness program, to limit basically that allows BOCEs to apply for grants through those programs and to…
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