House Education panel amends S313 to remove task force, asks AOE to study adult-diploma access to CTE

The House Education Committee on May 6 considered an amendment package to S313, a career-and-technical-education bill, that would delete a legislative task force and assign some of its duties to the Agency of Education (AOE).

St. James of the Office of Legislative Council told the committee that the most notable change in draft 1.1 “essentially eliminates the task force” and moves work into the agency’s reporting responsibilities. Under the proposed instance the clerk would incorporate the amendment into the commerce committee’s report and AOE would be directed to report back with recommendations.

The committee added a new report-back requirement focused on adult diploma participants: AOE must recommend how adult-diploma students could access CTE programming and specify how access should be funded through state funds. The language requires the agency to cite any federal or state law that creates a barrier and to explain how that law restricts access.

Members raised concerns about federal funding implications. St. James summarized that AOE’s testimony indicated allowing adult-diploma participants to access secondary CTE through the adult-diploma program could put federal funding at risk; the committee asked AOE to clarify whether the legal bar applies only to using federal funds or whether participation itself would trigger the prohibition regardless of funding source.

Lawmakers also flagged a budget-implementation issue: changes this year to the adult-diploma funding formula may not align with paying CTE tuition, raising the risk that students would be double-funded or that state dollars would need a mechanism to reach CTE providers. The committee asked AOE for specific recommendations and said policy fixes could require work in the next legislative session.

No formal vote was recorded during the meeting; members scheduled AOE testimony and discussed a possible vote on the amendment later in the week. The committee also noted that striking the task force removed related appropriations that had been attached to the original bill.