Whisnant appointed to interim session education committees

Oregon House Speaker Kotek has appointed Rep. Gene Whisnant (R-Sunriver) to two additional interim session education committees: the House Educational Committee and the Joint Committee on Public Education Appropriation as a co-vice-chair.

He will continue serving on the Joint Ways and Means Committee and Education Subcommittee; Joint Legislative Audits Committee; Emergency Board; House Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee as vice chair and the Transparency Oregon Advisory Commission.

“I look forward to serving on all these committees,” Rep. Whisnant stated in a news release Wednesday. “With the additional committee assignments, I will be serving on all the education policy and Ways and Means committees concerned with early education learning, PK-12, and Higher Education issues. I have served on the House Education Committee in previous sessions when the committee addressed all education issues. I was vice-chair twice.”

“With these committee assignments, I can monitor the implementation of the 2017 session education bills I sponsored,” Whisnant added. “I was recently informed that the HECC is recruiting a person to continue the program to add free on-line college text books required by HB 2729 , which I chief sponsored.”

The Joint Committee on Public Education Appropriation is required by the 2000 Ballot Measure 1 to submit a report which states if the PK-12 funding was sufficient or the report must identify the reasons for the insufficient funding.

Lawmakers will meet again November 13-15 for quarterly committee hearings.