Legislative Update from Rep. Frank Iler – May 16, 2011
It was interesting last week in the House not having the budget to deal with. The budget bill, House Bill 200 – Appropriations Act of 2011, was in the Senate last week. Even after it was voted out of the House, everyone still wanted to question, criticize, and second-guess the allocation of funds we had been working on since February. We had some answers, but had to let everyone know that it’s still a work in progress in the Senate.
With the budget out of the way, more attention was focused on annexation, the state health plan, criminal justice issues, and a jobs package. House Bill 845 – Annexation Reform Act of 2011 went through the Finance Committee Tuesday and Wednesday, and came to the floor for its first vote on Thursday. After a passionate debate, the bill passed by a convincing bipartisan vote of 102 – 13. The final House vote should come this Monday, and the bill will be sent to the Senate this week. Annexation is an issue of strong interest, so I plan to follow this bill and others on the subject very closely.
Criminal justice bills are coming to the forefront. On Monday, we passed a bill to use DNA samples on more felonies at the time of arrest, House Bill 483 – DNA Samples/Additional Felonies. The vote was 83- 34. On Tuesday, House Bill 379 – Uniform Depositions and Discovery Act passed by a 118 – 0 vote. This legislation will make discovery and depositions across state lines more in line with other states’ statutes and should lead to better criminal trials. Thursday, House Bill 54 – Habitual Misdemeanor Larceny passed by 108 – 7. This bill makes it a felony to commit seven or more misdemeanor larcenies. This will help keep shoplifters and similar criminals from traveling from place to place and committing multiple crimes without being locked up for a felony.
Senate Bill 323 – State Health Plan/Appropriations and Transfer was back in the House for concurrence with the conference report. This bill transfers the state health plan from the General Assembly to the State Treasurer where the program will receive full time, professional management. It also makes changes to the state employees’ and retirees’ health plan, including a charge of up to 5% or $22.00 to pay for some of their health plan for the first time. This has been the controversial part, but compares with 20% or more for most private business employees.
House and Senate leaders have been holding public hearings on two important subjects, regulation reform and redistricting. There should be some bills coming out about simplifying regulations for businesses. There may be new districts drawn by sometime in early June for the N.C. House, N.C. Senate, and the U.S. House. These are all including the public input that has been gathered during these hearings across the state.
On Friday, Senator Rabon and I were able to attend the governmental information breakfast of the ABCPOA, the Alliance of Brunswick County Property Owners’ Associations. We talked about some of the bills that are currently being considered in the General Assembly and answered questions on issues of interest to the homeowners. Approximately 2 million North Carolina residents now live in communities with a property owners’ or homeowners’ association.