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I just met with Bill Bjork of NEA-Alaska, and I gotta say it felt a little weird. I’ve had a few calls from various groups in my first days here asking to meet with me and discuss things like education funding and tourism. There’s nothing wrong with it, and I likely would have called these groups on my own if they hadn’t called me, but it sure feels like lobbying.

But that’s beside the point.

Education funding is a hot topic this year, and not just how much to fund education, but when to fund it. The Senate majority promised this week to get an education spending bill passed by March 1, long before the mid-April end of the session, to help school districts plan.

That was music to the ears of NEA-Alaska.

But Bjork told me today passing an education funding bill early won’t mean much if lawmakers don’t also pass SB 125 early. SB 125 spells out how much of the public employees’ and teachers’ pension debt the state will cover and how much school districts and municipalities will have to pick up. Bjork’s point was that school districts won’t really know how much money they have until they know how much they’ll get for educating and how much they’ll get for covering teacher pension obligations.

SB 125 was on the edge of passing last session but got stuck in endgame politics. There’s probably no reason it couldn’t be dusted off and approved next week, but some lawmakers say they expect it to be held till the end once again, which was not music to Bjork’s ears.