HB 13 (Hawker)
RETIREMENT SYSTEM LIABILITY/BONDS
Summary: Permits the issuing of bonds, notes, commercial paper, or other obligations to enable governmental employers to prepay all or a portion of the governmental employers’ shares of the unfunded accrued actuarial liabilities of retirement systems, and permits the Alaska Municipal Bond Bank to assist with issuing those bonds, etc. Allows prepayment of accrued actuarial liability; allows issuance of obligations in order to prepay; maintains separate accounts for each employer; establishes an expense account for the plan; directs the bond bank authority to operate in a manner that provides the lowest lending rates to governmental employers.

HB 23 (Stoltze)
LIMIT ANNUAL INCREASE OF MUNI PROP ASSESS
Summary: Prohibits municipalities from increasing a property assessment by more than two percent, except to take into account improvements or renovation. There is no provision in this legislation to allow for increasing the assessment of a property based on a higher sales price of the property or a higher sales price of a comparable property.

HB 24 (Stoltze)
PROPERTY ASSESSMENT APPEAL FEE
Summary: Prohibits municipalities from charging a fee for appeal of property assessments to a board of equalization.

HB 60 (Kohring)
MUNICIPAL PROPERTY TAX EXEMPTION
Summary: This bill (here it comes) intends to raise the senior and disabled veteran’s property tax exemption from the first $150,000 to the first $250,000. Needless to say, there is no mention of reimbursement by the State.

HB 72 (Chenault)
SCHOOL DISTRICT COST FACTORS
Summary: This bill would set new factors for calculating school districts’ adjusted ADM (average daily membership). Anchorage’s ADM is set at 1.000, and all other districts are adjusted from Anchorage’s number. Please see the bill for your district’s adjusted ADM.

HB 151 (Johnson)
INDEMNITY CLAUSE IN PUBLIC CONTRACTS
Summary: Would require public services contracts to hold the public agency harmless for negligent acts, errors, or omissions of the contractor or consultant, and would also include a provision for apportionment of joint liability on a comparative fault basis.

HB 174 (Representative COGHILL)
MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: INITIATIVE/REFERENDA
Summary: This bill would shorten the time that a special election may occur from 60 days to 45 days after certification of a petition.

HB 192 (DOOGAN, Crawford)
LAYOFF/NONRETENTION OF TEACHERS
Summary: Currently, if the legislature has not appropriated funding for education before March 15, school districts are required to send layoff notices to teachers by that date. This bill would recognize the reality that the March 15 layoff notices do not reflect the budgetary process of the legislature, and would change the date layoff notices are required to be sent to “on or before the last day of the school term.”

HB 273 (HAWKER)
EDUCATION FUNDING
Summary: Recommended by the Joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force to make certain changes to the current education funding formula as described in the (sponsor statement).

HCR 13 (HAWKER)
EDUCATION FUNDING/COST FACTOR COMMISSION
Summary: This bill would establish a commission to examine school district cost differentials. The main goal of the Commission would be to develop an economic model that can be used to update district cost factors on a regular and recurring basis. (sponsor statement)

HB 311 (request by Governor)
BUDGET: CAPITAL, SUPP. & OTHER APPROPS
Summary: Governor's proposed FY 09 capital budget, including $75 million to Municipal Revenue Sharing.

HB 320 (Meyer)
SEARCH & RESCUE: CERTIFICATION/WORK.COMP
Summary: This bill would allow municipalities the opportunity to extend workers compensation coverage to search and rescue service volunteers. The bill does not require municipalities to do so, instead it gives the municipality the choice to add these volunteer personnel to their current workers compensation coverage. (sponsor statement)

HB 386 (LeDoux)
ENERGY SUBSIDY FOR SCHOOLS
Summary: This bill would allow schools to submit energy bills for fiscal years 2007-09 to the state of Alaska to receive a 50% reimbursement to help offset high energy costs.

SB 19 (French)
ETHICS: EXECUTIVE BRANCH & MUNICIPAL
Summary: This bill's intent is to make the Executive Branch Ethics Act easier to understand by setting a series of financial lines for executive branch employees, describing sorts of forbidden financial interests and by explaining "official action" more clearly. (sponsor statement)

SB 52 (Request of the Governor)
APPROP: K-12 EDU; PERS/TRS LIABILITY
Summary: Appropriations from the General Fund totaling $395,701,500. This includes funds for centralized correspondence study, appropriations to the Department of Education & Early Development for distribution to school districts, and funding to the Teachers Retirement System.

SB 221 (request by Governor)
BUDGET: CAPITAL, SUPP. & OTHER APPROPS
Summary: Governor's proposed FY 09 capital budget, including $75 million to Municipal Revenue Sharing.

SB 240 (Stevens)
EDUCATION FUNDING
Summary: The funding component as recommended by the Joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force. This bill addresses school head counts as used for funding, the Base Student Allocation (BSA) and District Cost Factors (DCF). The bill also proposes increasing the Base Student Allocation. (sponsor statement)

SB 285 (Stevens)
STATE INTERVENTION IN SCHOOL DISTRICT
Summary: This bill is a result of Moore vs the State of Alaska. The intent of the bill provides the authority to the State of Alaska to intervene when a school district is not meeting its annual education progress as required by the State. Intervention would be to bring the school(s) back to the required educational standards before intervention is relinquished.

SB 290 (Hoffman)
SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION FUNDING
Summary: This bill would put all schools (whether they are located in the unorganized borough or not) on the same list for prioritized funding of school construction projects as designated by the State of Alaska.