Reporting this week: Sen. Jerry Klein

Here we are, already day thirteen of the legislative session. As I have mentioned before, there are a number of deadlines we need to meet. The last deadline for bill introduction was this past Monday. The total number of bills now is 904 with 359 Senate bills and 545 in the House. As a matter of perspective, that is 167 more than the 2017 session.

One of the bigger issues now is developing a budget that addresses all the needs of our state. What is a need to me may not be a need to another of my colleagues. That being said, it looks like the beginning emphasis is K-12 education, long-term care, state employees’ compensation and higher education. As most of these major budgets received little to no increase last session, there has been a lot of discussion as to how much we can provide for those critical needs while also taking care of the other needs of the state.

The Senate Industry, Business, and Labor Committee has been hearing bills that help strengthen cyber security issues, help with consumer fraud issues and do more to create confidentiality for our social security numbers. We also heard testimony on a very complex and emotional issue relating to mandating health care coverage for infertility treatment. This is one of those difficult issues when one needs to weigh the emotional side of a treatment to the cost to the citizens whose health insurance premiums would rise as a result. The committee has asked for a cost-benefit analysis and will continue to work on these issues and more.

Gotta run – thanks for the messages,

Sen. Jerry Klein