On March 14^th we ended the main run of the 2014 Legislative Session.  It was a session that had a lot of positive results but also one that left a number of important things undone. 
• From the opening tip of the session we talked about additional funding for education.  I talked often about our summer study and what we found in terms of programs cut, loss of teachers to other states and to other occupations within the state, fewer students entering the field of education at the colleges and universities, and many teachers reaching retirement age.  Our bipartisan group put together a list of bills to start to address the crisis we are facing.  One-by-one these bills were killed.  Resolutions to recognize the teacher shortage, additional funding ideas such as a 3.8% increase to restore funding levels to where we were funding our schools five years ago, a

bottom amount of funding of 2.0% each year so the schools could count on at least that amount each year, and a few other ideas.  We had heard from our schools that it was very difficult for them to plan as there is no certainty in terms of what the legislature will do each year.  We felt that we could do better and we kept the pressure on them and they eventually heard us.  They did go beyond the 3.0% that the Governor had called for and settled on a 3.3% increase.  It is not as much as we had hoped for but it will help the schools quite a bit.  Still we need to recognize that this issue won't go away and we will need to do more in the future.  We are grateful that the majority party heard us and did what we were asking for, an increase in school funding.
• One of my biggest disappointments was the failure to expand the Medicaid program to the working poor who are in need of assistance.  The amount of money that this would provide would be a great benefit to the state in terms of helping counties who end up paying for health care that many people cannot pay for, it would help hospitals, care providers, increase sales tax collections, there would be fewer bankruptcies, and the stimulus effect on the state and local governments would be very helpful.  I hold out hope that at some point we will take the actions needed to provide for the needs of these people and help our local hospitals and care providers.
• Another disappointment is that we did not do anything to ease the problems of our counties and townships.  We need to create funding sources to provide us with better roads.  We had a number of discussions about the topics and a number of bills were introduced but nothing of substance went forward.  There is a lot of talk

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