Legislative Update from Rep. Frank Iler – June 30, 2014

northcarolina_sealAlmost daily, the question being asked by people back home is, “When will the short session be over?” It’s hard to answer, as we are pushing to finish our work, but the budget negotiations are continuing.

Our business in Raleigh started early last week. Committee meetings began Monday afternoon and full voting sessions of the House and Senate were held Monday night. The negotiations over the budget were not moving as fast as we had hoped. There was concern over the size of the Medicaid reserve in the budget adjustments we had sent from the House to the Senate. Medicaid consumes over $3.5 billion of our $21 billion budget, so the estimate of dollars needed in this reserve is very important.

There had been some concern the previous week about an omnibus regulatory reform bill. Many thought the bill was too big or contained too many provisions that were unrelated. So there was a three hour meeting Tuesday morning of the Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member. The bill was broken down into two separate bills, so that the provisions in them could be more related. Senate Bill 493 – Health And Safety Regulatory Reform contained the health, medical, pharmacy, and hospital regulatory reforms. Senate Bill 734 – Regulatory Reform Act Of 2014 contained all the other reform provisions, including obsolete boards, an insurance rate study, and other administrative reforms. The bills were debated at length and amended in the committee, and both passed the committee and were sent to the House floor. On the House floor, there was more debate and amendments, and both passed. Senate Bill 493 passed Wednesday night on a bipartisan vote of 77 – 33. Senate bill 734 passed by a vote of 85 – 26, also bipartisan. Since these bills were totally changed from when the Senate initiated them, they were sent back to the Senate for its approval. They should be on the Senate floor this week.

Since the full budget bill was tied up in negotiations, another major bill last week was a bill to modify the budget for certain items, including teacher pay, state employee pay, coal ash cleanup funds, and other key issues. Senate Bill 3 – 2014 Budget Mods./Pay Raises/Other Changes was modified to serve as a “mini-budget” in case the full budget bill, Senate Bill 744 is not passed. Since there is already a two-year budget in place, either of these bills would only modify it for the new fiscal year starting July 1, 2014. Senate Bill 3 was presented in the full Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning and voted out favorably. After going to the House State Personnel Committee, it was on the House floor Thursday. After a short debate, the House passed it in a strong bi-partisan vote of 117 – 0. This bill is intended by the House to keep the promises already made in the event that the full budget bill doesn’t pass. Of course, we hope the full budget bill passes.

We were able to have a Transportation Meeting last Tuesday and passed several bills. This could have been our last meeting of the committee for this session. Most committees will not meet after last week. Our floor sessions are getting longer as we get more bills passed to finish our work in Raleigh.

There are several local bills that are still to be passed by one or both houses. Two bills for the district were passed last week in the Senate and should be in the House this week. One is for Shallotte and the other for Southport. You can follow these and other bills on the General Assembly website at www.ncleg.net.