Introduction

The Senate Presidents’ Forum gathered in person in Boulder, Colorado, July 10–13, 2022.

The program launched with a perennial favorite — a session reviewing the financial status of the states, with data and insights presented by MultiState analysts Joe Crosby and Morgan Scarboro. Practical, effective, and actionable solutions to homelessness were discussed by former Utah Senate President Hon. Wayne Niederhauser, who is now the Homeless Coordinator for the state, and by Rosanne Haggerty of Community Solutions. An enlightening briefing on the Russia-Ukraine war was delivered by Samuel Charap, PhD, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation whose expertise focuses on the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states. And as the nation’s students, teachers, and schools struggle to recover from the chaos COVID has caused, Dr. Patrick M. Shields, Executive Director of the Learning Policy Institute, and Dr. Penny Schwinn, Commissioner of Education for Tennessee, outlined strategies that have proven effective for addressing teacher shortages and improving educational outcomes.

All participants celebrated the opportunity to reconvene in person and to hear from world-class experts on topics that dramatically affect the states.

​The Forum Welcomes New Senate Participants SPF thanks all participants for joining us in Boulder, and is proud to have welcomed the following state leaders to their first in-person session.​​Stephen Fenberg
President of the Senate (CO)  ​David Gowan
Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee (AZ) ​​Bart Hester
Senate President Pro Tempore (AR)​Matthew HuffmanPresident of the Senate (OH)​J.D. MesnardChair, Senate Commerce Committee (AZ)​Ann MillnerChair, Senate Ethics Committee (UT)​Paul NewtonChair, Senate Finance Committee (NC)​Mimi StewartSenate President Pro Tempore (NM)

​​Senators Dean Kirby (Senate President Pro Tem, MS) and Charles Winder (Senate President Pro Tem, ID)     ​Jessica Bowman (Reynolds) and Sen. Hanna Gallo (Senate President Pro Tem, RI)

​ISSUES​State Budgets: A Half-Year Check-In​Real Solutions for Ending Homelessness​The Crisis in Ukraine​Education: Recovering from COVID Chaos 

​​Sen. Bill Ferguson (Senate President, MD) and Tommy Suter (Novartis Services, Inc.)     ​Sen. Bart Hester (Senate President Pro Tem, AR) and Beth Percynski (The Proctor & Gamble Co.)