Dear Leaders, 

This year’s legislative session officially ended a little over a month ago with a number of significant victories for the League and our schools.

However, the legislative process increasingly requires year-round engagement, and over the past month, the League has remained actively involved in several post-session efforts with meaningful implications for charters.

We’re proud to report that each of these efforts has met with a favorable outcome:

Veto of HB1307 (“HVAC Improvements for Public Schools”)

This bill would have introduced new requirements for handling heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for all public schools and districts. When utilizing federal funds or a mix of federal and state funding earmarked specifically for HVAC improvements, schools, and districts would have had to adhere to a number of technical specifications for installing, inspecting, maintaining, reviewing, and reporting these systems. 

The League was concerned with the unnecessary onerousness of many of this bill’s provisions from the outset. While we were unable to gain traction on these concerns during the legislative process itself, we knew that the Governor’s office shared many of our concerns. Shortly after the legislative session concluded, we joined CASE, CASB, and the Rural Schools Alliance in submitting this veto request to Governor Polis on the bill, and we were grateful to see him indeed veto it on May 17th. 

Veto of HB1260 (“Prohibition Against Employee Discipline”)

Another bill Governor Polis vetoed was HB1260 related to employee discipline. This bill would have prohibited employers from requiring the attendance of employees at any meeting where representatives of the employer held forth on subjects deemed “religious” or “political.” 

Our major concern with it was that the proponents of the bill refused to give any accommodation to the concerns of local public bodies such as ourselves, who consistently pointed out that local public bodies are inherently “political” and that many of the tasks we are required to do would be compromised by the inability to require employees to attend a meeting to discuss any matter that might be deemed “political.” The definitions were simply too broad, and we submitted the following veto letter to Governor Polis on May 15th outlining our concerns. We were again glad to see him veto it on May 17th.

Signing Statement on HB1323 (“School Graduation Attire”)

Finally, one other action we were glad to see Governor Polis take over the course of the past month was his inclusion of a signing statement alongside his signature on HB1323 on graduation attire.

Many of you have heard us speak to the troubling rise in recent years in the number of bills introduced that include language aimed at prohibiting anyone from ever seeking a waiver from them. Waivers and the ability to pursue them are obviously central to the entire charter premise, and so we’ve been in regular communication with the Governor’s office about our concern related to this trend. 

As a result of our communication with him, he wanted to send a statement this cycle expressing his shared concern on this issue and signaling that he would not look favorably on bills with similar provisions in the future. That statement came in the form of his signing statement on HB1323, and we’re glad to see him putting a marker down on this important topic for the duration of his tenure.

All of these developments speak to the close partnership we’ve established with Governor Polis, and we’re grateful to him and his team for their ongoing support and alignment with us on such critical issues related to charter equity, autonomy and innovation.

Sincerely,

The League’s Advocacy Team