Agar begins House bill deliberations

On Tuesday, Senate District 20 Representative Wyatt Agar reported he was headed again to a meeting of the Corporations Committee, with which he has been active during the 2017 Legislature,

Agar reported they have started cross over and are beginning to deliberate House bills. They are also in the first reading of the supplemental government appropriations budget, SF 01, and he wants to remind everyone budget cuts are not incurred by any particular sector but are spread across the board.

Last week, Agar noted, they worked several bills that pertained to education, the first of which was SF 134 School Finance-class size waiver, which ultimately passed. The bill repeals the requirement of school districts to provide evidence to the state of the student to teacher ratio.

Agar said the bill has two benefits. It saves around 109 hours of staff time, and it is the first step in allowing schools that are over built to make the decisions on adjusting classroom population at the local level.

The second bill worked was SF 171, Civics Proficiency, which failed. The bill required that students pass an examination on the principles of the Constitution before graduation.

“While it is a great idea,” Agar stated, “the bill had been amended to say the ‘essentials of the Constitution.’ That worried me; who gets to decide what is essentials? Also at a time of budget cuts I don't believe that we should be sending more mandates to our teachers.”

Also deliberated was SF 153, regarding employment nondiscrimination, which also failed. Agar stated his worries with the bill were simple — it sought to establish a definition for freedom of religion. As the definition read a group has the right to exercise religious beliefs, but individuals did not, which would not survive a court room challenge.