Three and a half weeks into the new state fiscal year we have no
newly adjusted budget, and the passage of important bills has
slowed to a trickle, but there's a distinct uptick in
hostage-taking of bills.
This week the Senate met with the Governor and some lead House
budget writers in an attempt to close a deal on the budget. As of
today, we hear they may be close; the
Medicaid program is the outlier issue.
On teacher pay, it occurs to us that with the
House staked out at 6% pay raises for teachers plus preserving the
jobs of teacher assistants but the Senate staked out at 11% pay
raises for teachers funded in part through eliminating teacher
assistants, the logical compromise is to require a certain
percentage pay increase for teachers to be determined by local
school districts with additional monies dedicated to
either further increased pay raises or teacher
assistants, but for no other purpose. We hear that
idea is floating around and it would be a political win-win for
Republicans at this point if political wins are available in late
July.
The Senate continues to work on its Medicaid structure and funding
bill and that has kept the Legislative Building hopping during this
otherwise quiet week. The Senate version of HB 1181 -
Medicaid Modernization is here: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H1181v5.pdf
House Members have a full calendar today for the first time this
week. In fact, today is the 4th House Calendar with votes this
July. Most House Members were in Raleigh yesterday to attend the
funeral services of Rep. Fulghum who died last
week very quickly after a cancer diagnosis. WRAL's Laura
Leslie wrote a nice story about him here: http://www.wral.com/rep-fulghum-dies-after-ongoing-cancer-treatments/13825831/.
The NC Bar and LegalZoom continue
to try to draft a compromise bill at the urging of Senate
Leadership. Our blog post from earlier this week includes the
language that's floating around the halls. The bill is in
Senate Rules. We hear the House won't take it up this session.
Check out our earlier blog post here: http://ncstategov.blogspot.com/2014/07/legalzoom-or-illegalzoom.html
The snail's pace of work in Raleigh is causing reporters to see
which legislators are collecting per diem while not
working in Raleigh ($104/day, 7days/week) and how much it costs to
keep the building open and functioning ($50,000/day while in
session) during these dog days of summer.
Many legislators and other folks who roam the halls planned family
vacations for late in the summer when session adjourned and we had
some time to wrap up reports and mail our thank you notes, but
we're now going on those vacations (me) and next week many
legislators will attend the ALEC legislative
conference in Dallas with legislators from all over the country.
Here's ALEC's website: http://www.alec.org/.
Bills
Now just a snapshot of some of the bills we've been
watching this session. Consider it to be the photo of the hostage
holding a newspaper with today's date:
HB 1224 - Local Taxing Authority and Economic
Development is on the Senate Calendar for 3rd reading. It
is expected to pass and then the House must vote
whether concur or conference. This bill contains economic
development funding as well as limits (in
some counties)/enhances (in other counties) the ability to
raise revenue through additional local sales tax. Many of you
have asked about the crowdfunding language; it's in there. The
latest version is here. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H1224v3.pdf
SB 812 - Repeal Common Core was signed by the
Governor this week and is now law. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S812v7.pdf
SB 793 - Charter School Modifications now has a
conference report and the Senate has placed it on the calendar. The
House has not yet filed its copy. The conference report is here: http://www.ncleg.net/Applications/BillLookUp/LoadBillDocument.aspx?SessionCode=2013&DocNum=9534&SeqNum=0
SB 38 - Amend Environmental Laws needs Senate
concurrence in House changes. The Senate Clerk has held it since
June 24th. The bill is here: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S38v5.pdf
SB 729 - Coal Ash is in conference. We hear the
conference committee has nearly completed its work but we
haven't seen a draft yet.
SB 853 - Business Court Modernization awaits
concurrence and sits in the Senate Rules Committee.
HB 1101 and HB 1102 on Mechanics Liens await
Senate floor action and sit in the Senate Rules Committee.
SB 493 - Healthcare Regulatory Reform is in the
tiny and non-meeting Senate Ways and Means Committee. See the bill
here (possibly exclusively): http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S493v6.pdf
SB 734 - Regulatory Reform is also there. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S734v6.pdf.
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