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Senate Education Committee advances six education bills to finance or the floor
Summary
On Feb. 11 the New York State Senate Education Committee voted to advance six bills addressing school meal purchases, universal student meals, absentee ballots for school elections, fire department recruitment presentations in high schools, disaster voting days for school elections, and school election wards in Orange County.
The New York State Senate Education Committee moved six education-related bills forward during a brief Feb. 11 meeting, sending two to the Senate Finance Committee and four to the Senate floor for further action.
The committee advanced legislation that would require or encourage school districts to purchase certain school breakfast foods from New York State farmers and producers (identified in the meeting as S.591 by Senator Henscheid) and a separate bill providing for universal student meals (identified as S.594 by Senator Hinchey). Committee members noted those bills had support from statewide education and agricultural organizations, and the measures were sent to the Finance Committee for review.
The panel also approved bills on absentee ballots for school district elections (identified as S.2589 by Senator Mayer), allowing fire departments to give recruitment presentations in high schools (identified as S.3111 by Senator Helmeid), permitting the Commissioner of Education to declare that a disaster substantially impacted a school board or school budget election and allow an additional voting day (identified as S.3735 by Senator Mayer), and establishing school election wards in certain school districts that lie in Orange County (identified as S.4434 by Senator Scoofus). Those four measures were moved to the Senate floor.
Committee members briefly stated which organizations supported several bills. The bill on purchases from New York farmers was noted as supported by the New York State Council of School Superintendents, New York State United Teachers, the Farm Bureau, the PTA, and the New York State School Boards Association. The universal student meals bill was identified as supported by the New York State School Boards Association, the New York State Council of School Superintendents, New York State United Teachers and the Farm Bureau. The absentee-ballot measure and the disaster-voting-day measure were noted as supported by the New York State School Boards Association and the New York State Council of School Superintendents.
No roll-call tallies were recorded in the meeting transcript provided; committee members indicated approval on each measure and the chair or presiding member announced that bills would move to the next indicated committee or to the floor. The meeting concluded promptly after the votes so the Senate could proceed to the Regents agenda.
At the meeting, committee members also confirmed quorum and reviewed voting sheets before taking action on each bill. No substantive amendments or dissenting debate on the bills were recorded in the available transcript.
