AFT-NH Legislative Bulletin, 2017-20
This will be a very brief bulletin since neither the Senate or House were in session this past week. Having said that, there was activity.
The Senate has now crafted and released its proposed State budget for the 2017-19 biennium. In an effort to win over some of the extreme right-wing Republicans whose votes scuttled the House version of the budget, Senate Republicans on the Finance Committee adopted very conservative revenue estimates as a means of justifying leaving many programs and initiatives unfunded or underfunded. Full funding of all-day kindergarten has been removed from the budget, and funding for battling the opioid crisis remains inadequate. Yet despite the supposed financial stringencies, the majority in the Senate have found monies to pay for a spokesperson for the Dept. of Education at an annual $83,500 salary (to speak at the behest of Commissioner Edelblut) and also to increase the funding for charter schools (as opposed to the traditional public schools which the vast majority of NH students attend).
Baltimore County Federation of Public Employees (BCFPE) trained a new group of stewards in the union’s office on Tuesday May 23, 2017. The stewards learned a lot about their union and its function. Many of them told stories of workplace bullying and harassment from superiors while also noting the difference in the behavior of management when a union official was present and when one was not.
