by Ken Rozenboom
Next week is the first funnel week of this legislative session, meaning all Senate policy bills need to be out of Senate committees in order to be considered for the rest of the year. This deadline forces us to focus on the bills that have enough support to advance through the process. I was happy to hear Governor Reynolds has signed Senate File 269, which was the education funding increase we passed last week. Setting this increase early in session is important so local school districts can start working on their budgets and know how much money the state will send to them next year. Also, because this is the largest single piece of the state budget, it allows us to begin discussion on the rest of the budget.