FISCAL NOTE

Senate Bill 217 as introduced allows the State Superintendent of Education to convene other instructional materials review committees consisting of educators and other experts to review instructional materials which could increase the obligations of the State Department of Education, to reimburse committee members per diem and travel expenses from funds appropriated to the Department. The amount of the increase obligations is undetermined, but could be dependent upon: (1) the number of committees convened; (2) the number of members on each committee, and (3) the number of days that each committee meets.

As substituted and reported by the Committee on Education Policy this bill (1) allows the State Superintendent to utilize other methods to conduct reviews of other instructional materials such as contracting or consulting with experts, joining material review consortiums, or using existing committees or task forces which could increase or decrease, the obligations of the Department by an undetermined amount dependent upon the cost of the method(s) selected; and (2) increases, by ten, the number of days a member of the State Textbook Committee can be reimbursed in any one school year for per diem and travel expenses for attending committees which would increase further the obligations of the Department, by an undetermined amount.

This bill provides that the State Superintendent, on or before June 30, 2023, shall consult with the State Board of Education (SBOE) to provide recommendations to the Chairs of the House Education Policy Committee and the Senate Education Policy Committee on adopting innovative strategies and programming to improve the effectiveness of statewide textbook or other instructional materials reviews.