Joe Pyrah

There was no weeping, but there was plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth as Senate Republicans rammed forward a massive education bill many see as back-room skulduggery.

The Salt Lake City Democrat and others protested the use of an omnibus education bill to combine 12 separate bills, some of which had died in committee or even failed in House votes. Seven of them hadn't even been discussed on the Senate floor.

"When I run a bill next year ... what kind of process can I expect?" asked Sen. Pat Jones. "Will I have to go through the process again? Or is it just as easy for me to work with the powers-that-be to get a bill passed at the last minute?"

Some of the bills in question include $2.5 million in ongoing and $1 million in one-time funding for an early childhood learning program, and $2.5 million in savings to charter school funding through a property tax shift.

Senate Republican leaders say it's important to look at Senate Bill 2 and all its parts as a concerted effort to improve education, even if some of those parts seem plucked from certain death. And though nearly all the work was done behind closed doors, Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said leadership wasn't trying to hide anything and suggested that they were also skipping bureaucracy.

"We've tried to be open with this," said Hillyard, who is among the majority leadership that has crafted the bill.

At the same time, he said during debate of an amendment on Tuesday that the proposed changes hadn't been through the proper process.

"I think we want do as much through the committee process as we can do it," he said.

Democrats -- with a shake of their heads -- said it was leadership that had failed to follow the correct process.

"Yesterday we were patting ourselves on the back because we ranked very high in state management," said Sen. Ross Romero, D-Salt Lake City, referring to a report in Governing Magazine. "I think we owe it to the people to take more time."

The bill passed through the Senate on one vote 21-7 and will face debate in the House. That debate promises to be much livelier, as representatives on both sides of the aisle have been frustrated with how the omnibus bill has been handled. Take for example the school redistricting bill that they didn't like. They proposed or passed nine different amendments before that bill escaped their grasp.

The House had education on their schedule Tuesday night but put it off until today.

"We'll spend all morning on it if they want to," said Speaker of the House Greg Curtis, R-Sandy.

They'll also be taking their whacks at Senate Bill 281, a companion to Senate Bill 2. The former contains $25 million requested by the governor for one-time teacher bonuses. But there's a million-dollar thorn in the representatives' paw. It's set aside to help teachers get awarded by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence. It's a relatively new program being pushed hard by Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Eagle Mountain, but viewed warily by the House.