HB 464-CORRESPONDENCE STUDY PROGRAMS CHAIR KOTT announced that the final order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 464, "An Act relating to statewide school district correspondence study programs." Number 2158 REPRESENTATIVE PORTER moved to adopt Version 22-LS1494\X as the working document. There being no objection, Version X was before the committee. Number 2164 RICHARD SCHMITZ, Staff to Representative Jeannette James, Alaska State Legislature, explained that HB 464 provides guidance to the Department of Education in regard to writing regulations regarding statewide correspondence study programs. Version X includes a small technical change located on page 2, lines 3-5, which in part specifies "the district is not required to submit a new application more frequently than every five years unless the program is designated as deficient or in crisis under AS 14.03.123(a)". He stated that the five years was a compromise between the ten year approval process that charter schools currently go through and the annual approval that the department proposed correspondence study programs go through. Because the designators are being delayed, the thought was that it would be better to use the aforementioned language in order to ensure that the department won't require that these programs are reapproved every year until the designators come into force. Therefore, the parameters remain available for deficiency or crisis and if the department could show that those programs were deficient or in crisis under the parameters, then the programs would have to be reapproved every year until corrected. REPRESENTATIVE JEANNETTE JAMES, Alaska State Legislature, testified as the sponsor of HB 464, which she characterized as a good piece of legislation. She urged the committee to pass Version X. REPRESENTATIVE McGUIRE requested that Representative James speak to the [troublesome] fiscal note. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES agreed that the fiscal note is troublesome. This bill [Version X] doesn't create any new liability or expense but rather is almost the same as the draft regulations. To that, the department said that the bill expands the [correspondence school] program and thus two more people are necessary to manage the program. If that is the case and the bill doesn't do that, Representative James suggested that [the funding for those two positions] should be included in the department's budget. The department informed her that those positions were in their budget, but that funding wasn't obtained and thus this attempts to obtain the money with this bill. In conversations with the co-sponsor of the House Finance Committee, the recommendation was to move the bill forward with the fiscal note which will probably not be funded. CHAIR KOTT closed public testimony. Number 2305 REPRESENTATIVE KOHRING moved to report CSHB 464, Version 22- LS1494\X, out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, CSHB 303(RLS) was reported from the House Rules Standing Committee.