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As budget negotiations continue, there has been action on several bills.

The following bills have become law:

S 30, Domestic Violence Victims/Add Protections.

S 164, Study Housing/Training Mentally Ill in Adult Care Homes.

S 862, UNC Smoke-Free.

H 24, Smoking in State Government Buildings/Prohibition.

H 47, Violate Order/Possess Deadly Weapon Felony.

H 150, Every Child Ready to Learn.

H 483, Chapel Hill Campaign Finance Options. (As a local bill, it did not require the Governor’s signature.)

H 554, Assault Disabled Person/Institutional Setting.

H 786, LEO Provide Info to DA for Discovery.

H 824, Improve Gender Equity Reporting Statute.

H 915, Offer Sign Language in Schools and Colleges.

The following bills have been agreed upon by the House and Senate and now await the Governor’s signature:

S 670, Use of Solar Collectors.

S 753, Disability History and Awareness Month.

S 1086, Tobacco Free Schools.

H 91, Registration and Voting at One-Stop Sites. The conference committee agreed to a final version which deletes the requirement that all registration forms and ballots be printed in English.

H 973, Mental Health Equitable Coverage. The agreed-upon version of H 973 would:

· Apply to all employers, including small businesses.

· Provide full parity for nine named mental illnesses. (The list was provided by Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC, which said these nine account for the overwhelming majority of mental health claims.)

· Provide financial parity for other mental illnesses. But there could be “durational limits” not imposed on physical illnesses. These durational limits would have to allow a minimum of thirty combined inpatient and outpatient days per year and thirty office visits per year.

· Exclude substance abuse treatment from the parity bill entirely.

The following bills await concurrence in one house:

S 1466, Migrant Housing Health/Safety, has been passed by the House and returned to the Senate for concurrence in House changes.

H 17, Study Service for Students with Disabilities in High School, has been passed by the Senate and returned to the House for concurrence.

H 183, Ban Cell Phone Use by School Bus Drivers, has been returned to the House for concurrence in Senate changes.

H 1016, State Medicaid Swap, attempts to deal with some of the sticking points on the budget through a separate bill. When H 1016 passed the House, it was about so-called 529 Plans for education savings accounts. But it has now been completely changed by the Senate to include the following provisions:

· Establish a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit equal to 5% of the federal EITC. It would be limited to those taxpayers filing as heads of households or married filing jointly and with dependents. Those filing as singles, even with dependents, would not benefit.

· Phase out the county share of Medicaid by 2009, with the state taking over the county share in three stages.

· Over the next two years, transfer one-half cent of the local sales tax to the state.

H 1016 has been passed by the Senate. Since it had already passed the House, though in a completely different form, it will now be returned to the House for concurrence.

H 1097, Local Energy Efficiency Incentives, has been amended in the Senate to include Charlotte, Wilmington, and Carrboro. As amended, H 1097 has been passed by the Senate and returned to the House for concurrence.

And in other action:

S 3, Promote Renewable Energy/Baseload Generation, has been referred to the House Energy and Energy Efficiency Comm. The NC Council of Churches supports legislation which increases the use of renewable sources of energy, which is how S 3 started out. However, the NC Council does not support S 3 in its current form because it would now also encourage the use of fossil fuels. Perhaps most troubling is a provision which would allow costs for Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) to be passed along to consumers. This means that ratepayers would be paying for the construction of new power plants before they ever started producing electricity, and even if construction were halted and they never produced electricity. This, in effect, transfers the financial risk of building new plants from a corporation’s stockholders to its customers and would increase incentives for a company to start construction prematurely or unnecessarily.

S 334, Fair Housing Act Amendment, has been re-referred to the Senate Appropriations Comm.

H 9, School Capital Fund Formula/Lottery Proceeds, has been passed by the House and will move to the Senate. It was amended to delete the requirement that all of the school construction money be allocated based on the size of the school system. Instead, the 35% of that money that is currently allocated to counties with a higher than average tax rate would now be redirected, with 17.5% going to low-wealth counties and 17.5% to rapidly growing school systems.

H 1294, No Smoking, LTC Facilities, is on the Senate floor for action.

H 1785, Fire-Safe Cigarette Act, has been passed by the House and is now in the Senate Finance Comm.