North Carolina Legislative Report - March 27, 2015
March 27, 2015
The General Assembly convened for the 2015 legislative session on January 14. Lawmakers returned to Raleigh on January 28 to begin the session in earnest. The MVA Public Affairs Legislative Report on North Carolina will be distributed on a weekly basis to keep you up to date on the latest legislative issues facing the state.
Follow us on Twitter @MVA_PA
Check out the MVA Public Affairs Blog
On The Floor
This week, the Senate passed H 41, IRC Update/Rev Laws Tech Changes; S 29, DOB Redaction Requests for Public Documents; S 6, State Health Plan/Rehired Retiree Eligibility; S 105, Include No. Veterans Employed/Annual Report; S 112, Comm. Fishing Courses/Coastal Colleges; S 140, Lake Santeetlah Occupancy Tax Authorization; S 156, Mt. Gilead Charter Revision and Consolidation; S 176, Charger School Grade Level Expansion; S 305, NCEMPA Asset Sale; and S 334, SBCC Election.
The House passed H 130, Davie County/Food for Detention Facilities; H 13, Amend School Health Assessment Requirement; H 29, Technical Changes to Courses of Study Statue; H 82, Execution/Nonsecure Custody Order/Child Abuse; H 143, Charlotte/Civil Service Board; H 173, Omnibus Criminal Law Bill; H 211, Expand Use of Toxicology Funds; H 16, Repeal Outdated Reports; H 50, Amend Mand. Retire. Age/Judges and Magistrates; H 151, Property Insurance Rate-Making Reform; H 201, Zoning Changes/Citizen Input; H 216, Great Leaders for Great Schools/Study; H 294, Prohibit Cell Phone/Delinquent Juvenile; H 295, Juvenile Media Release; H 6, Autocycle Definition and Regulation; H 12 Amend Gaston Foster Care Ombudsman Program; H 152, New Historic Preservation Tax Credit; H 229, Modify Religious Property Exemption; H 281 Records to Medical Examiner; H 286, Dental Hygienists/Intraoral Local Anesthetics and S 334, SBCC Election. The House also adopted the conference report for S 14, Academic Standards/Rules Review/Coal Ash/Funds.
Committees
Joint Appropriations Subcommittee Meetings
The House and Senate continued with joint appropriations subcommittee meetings as they work towards putting together a budget for this year. Individual subcommittees met this week and reviewed specific budget areas such as Transportation, Health and Human Services, Education, Public Safety, General Government and Information Technology. These committees took this time to review the current budget and identify key priorities for the upcoming year. Members will continue their work when they return next week.
House Education K-12 Committee
The Committee met on Tuesday, March 24, and approved two bills. H 216, Great Leaders for Great Schools/Study, directs the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee to study strategies for providing North Carolina with great leaders for great schools. H 133, Modify Special Education Scholarships, seeks to increase the amount of the scholarship funds available to students with disabilities per semester and to modify the method of payment of tuition for those students.
House Education Committee on Universities
The House Education Committee on Universities met on Tuesday, March 24, and approved two bills. H 72, SOG Pilot Project Standards, would require the UNC School of Government to coordinate a working group charged with developing standards for state agencies to use when designing and implementing pilot projects mandated by the General Assembly. H 129, High Achieving Tuition Scholarships, seeks to create the high achieving tuition scholarship program for scholarships for top-performing high school students attending NC community colleges.
House Transportation Committee
The Committee met on Tuesday, March 25, to resume discussion on H 183, Repeal Map Act. H 183 would repeal the Map Act passed in 1987 that allows the state to block development on properties in the path of planned highway projects. If repealed, the state will be required to purchase the land upfront before it is ready to build a road. H 183 received a favorable report and will be heard in House Appropriations.
House Public Utilities Committee
The Committee met on Wednesday, March 25, and approved two bills. H 86, Utility Line Relocation/School Board, would require the Department of Transportation to pay the non-betterment cost of relocating water and sewer lines owned by local boards of education. H 265, NCEMPA Asset Sale, seeks to provide cost recovery for acquisition of joint municipal power agency ownership interest in generating facilities, to authorize municipalities that are members of joint municipal power agencies to enter into support contracts and to issue bonds to pay the costs of projects that are sold.
House Commerce Committee
The Committee met on Wednesday, March 25. Commerce Secretary John Skvarla and Chris Chung, CEO of NC Economic Development Partnership, addressed the Committee to promote economic development incentives proposals. The Commerce Committee will meet again next Wednesday, April 1, at 11:00.
House Health Committee
The Committee met Wednesday, March 25, to discuss three bills. H 286, Dental Hygienist/Intraoral Local Anesthetic, offers trained dental hygienists that have completed extra training the ability to apply local anesthetic to areas in the mouth as required for certain procedures. The Committee passed a technical amendment and approved the PCS by a voice vote.
H 267, Amend Respiratory Care Act, makes various changes and amends the current Respiratory Care Act. The Committee passed a technical amendment and approved the PCS by a voice vote. The bill was referred to the House Finance Committee.
H 281, Records to Medical Examiner, directs the Department of Public Safety to provide full and accurate records that would assist medical examiners in determining an inmate’s cause of death. The Committee passed an amendment clarifying that any and all living and posthumous records should be shared with medical examiners following the death of an inmate and proceeded to approve the PCS by voice vote.
House Environment Committee
The Committee met Thursday, March 26, to hear an update from DENR staff regarding coal ash. DENR Assistant Secretary for the Environment Tom Reeder gave the Committee an update on what the department has done to date preparing for the excavation, transportation and storage of coal ash currently being held at 14 facilities across the state. Reeder reported that DENR has met or is ahead of the deadlines set forth by Executive Order 62 and the Coal Ash Management Act of 2014. Finally, he explained the next steps in the planning and execution of DENR’s coal ash management strategy.
Senate Education Committee
The Committee met Wednesday, March 25, to discuss two bills. S 176, Charter School Grade Level Expansion, aims to create an exemption that would allow charter schools in close proximity to military installations to expand grade levels in order to compensate for rapid population growth. The bill passed by voice vote and was referred to the House for consideration.
S 334, SBCC Election, sets the State Board of Community Colleges election date for April 16. This is a standard practice each long session to set the date for legislature to elect members to the SBCC. The bill was approved by voice vote.
In The News
Raleigh News & Observer: NC Senate Republicans propose more tax cuts
Raleigh News & Observer: Gas tax ‘cut’ will boost NC DOT revenues by $400 million
WRAL: House vote preserves new version of historic tax credit
WRAL: Protest petition repeal passes House
WRAL: McCrory takes swipe at Senate bills
Raleigh News & Observer: NC senators file range of bills as deadline approaches
Charlotte Observer: Census: Mecklenburg County’s population hits 1 million
Raleigh News & Observer: Plan would redistribute NC sales tax revenue
Calendar
| Mon, March 30, 2015 | ||
| 2:00 PM | Session Convenes (Senate) | |
| 7:00 PM | Session Convenes (House) | |
|
| ||
| 8:30 AM | Appropriations, Transportation (House) | |
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 8:30 AM | 425 LOB | |
| 8:30 AM | Joint Appropriations on General Government and Information Technology (Senate) | 425 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 10:00 AM | Pensions and Retirement (House) Community Colleges 403(b) Plan.-AB (H264) | |
| 10:00 AM | Regulatory Reform (House) Building Code Reg. Reform. (H255) | |
| 10:00 AM | Education - K-12 (House) Duty-Free Time/Lunch for Teachers. (H238) | |
| 10:15 AM | Judiciary II (Senate) Criminal Law/Filing False Document. (S83) | 1124/1224 LB |
| 11:00 AM | Education - Community Colleges (House) Trustee Appointments/Isothermal Comm. Coll. (H188) | |
| 12:00 PM | State and Local Government (Senate) | 423 LOB |
| 12:00 PM | Transportation (House) Utility Line Relocation/School Board. (H86) | |
| 12:00 PM | Rep. Avila - Press Conference | |
| 1:00 PM | Judiciary II (House) Stalking by GPS/Criminal Offense. (H187) | 421 LOB |
|
| ||
| 8:30 AM | Appropriations, Transportation (House) | |
| 8:30 AM | Appropriations, Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources (Joint) (House) | 421 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | Joint Appropriations on Natural and Economic Resources (Senate) | 421 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | Appropriations, General Government (Joint) -- CANCELLED (House) | 425 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 10:00 AM | Health (House) Allow Substitution of Biosimilars. (H195) | |
| 11:00 AM | Alcoholic Beverage Control (House) Tribal Alcoholic Beverage Control. (H95) | 423 LOB |
| 11:00 AM | Education/Higher Education (Senate) Amend Qualifications/Practice of Counseling. (S279) | |
| 12:30 PM | Rep. Gill - Press Conference | |
| 1:00 PM | Public Utilities (House) Natural Gas Econ. Dev. Infrastructure. (H332) | |
|
| ||
| 8:30 AM | Appropriations, Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources (Joint) (House) | 421 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | Joint Appropriations on Natural and Economic Resources (Senate) | 421 LOB |
| 8:30 AM | 425 LOB | |
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 8:30 AM | ||
| 10:00 AM | Environment (House) Cape Fear Water Resources Availability Study. (H186) | |
| 10:00 AM | Rep. Saine - Press Conference | |
|
| ||
| 11:30 AM | Rep. Fisher - Press Conference | |
|
| ||
| 3:00 PM | ||
|
| ||
| 10:30 PM | Rep. McGrady - Press Conference | |
|
| ||
| 11:30 AM | Rep. Fisher - Press Conference | |
|
| ||
| 4:00 PM | 423 LOB | |