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Here is the status report on bills which were acted upon during the last week of the session.

THE FOLLOWING HAVE BEEN SIGNED BY THE GOVERNOR OR BECOME LAW WITHOUT HIS SIGNATURE:

H 17, Study Services for Students with Disabilities in High School.

H 26, Study Teacher Preparation Programs.

H 973, Mental Health Equitable Coverage.

H 1473, the 2007 Appropriations Act.

S 670, Use of Solar Collectors.

S 753, Disability History and Awareness Month.

S 1572, Wilmington 1898 Riot. This bill was introduced on July 31 by Sen. Katie Dorsett. It acknowledges the findings of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission and expresses “profound regret” about the race riot. (A joint resolution, it did not require the Governor’s signature.)

S 1573, Adjournment Resolution. (Does not require Governor’s signature.)

THE FOLLOWING HAVE BEEN RATIFIED AND AWAIT THE GOVERNOR’S SIGNATURE. Under the state’s relatively new gubernatorial veto, the Governor has 30 days in which to sign legislation presented to him during the last ten days of the session. Any bill he does not sign during that time becomes law. If he should veto any bill, the General Assembly must either come back into session to try to override the veto or certify that such a session is not necessary, presumably an admission that there aren’t sufficient votes for an override.

H 265, Establish Health Insurance Risk Pool. The Senate amended the bill to delete the proposed repeal of the credit for small business employee health benefits and, instead, uses money already being paid by insurance companies in premium taxes to support the high-risk pool.

H 291, Sudan (Darfur) Divestment Act.

H 573, Authorize Judge/Concealed Weapon in Court.

H 1294, No Smoking/LTC Facilities. The conference committee report made clear that state psychiatric hospitals are already covered by the smoking ban in H 24, adopted earlier this year, which applies to all state buildings. H 1294 also requires the state psychiatric hospitals to notify incoming patients of the smoking ban.

H 1499, Increase Homestead Income Limit to 25K. The Senate amended the bill so that it now contains the following:

· increases the maximum income limit for qualifying for the homestead exclusion to $25,000 and continues to index it to Social Security cost-of-living increases.

· increases the floor for the amount excluded from $20,000 to $25,000 and asks the Revenue Laws Study Committee to study whether the floor should also be indexed.

· creates a “property tax homestead circuit breaker.” This enables qualified homeowners to defer property taxes until the owner dies, transfers the property, or no longer uses it as a permanent residence. To qualify, the homeowner must be a NC resident at least 65 years old or permanently disabled who has occupied the home for at least five years and has income of not more than 150% of the income limit for the homestead exclusion. The homeowner may defer tax on the residence to the extent that the tax exceeds a percentage of the owner’s income. The percentage is based on the owner’s income and is either 4% or 5%. The homeowner may choose either the existing homestead exclusion or the new circuit breaker, but not both.

H 1517, Voter-Owned Elections Pilot.

H 1743, Election Amendments.

H 1785, Fire-Safe Cigarette Act.

H 1828, Strengthen Judicial Fund.

S 3, Promote Renewable Energy/Baseload Generation.

S 229, Legal Status of Prisoners, started out as “Murder/Violation of Protective Order.” But the House Judiciary Comm. stripped out those provisions and replaced them with a requirement that jailers attempt to determine whether those housed in their jails and charged with a felony or DWI are legal residents of the US.

S 668, Energy Conservation in State Buildings.

S 1079, Protections for Victims of Human Trafficking.

S 1492, Solid Waste Management Act of 2007. As adopted, the bill includes the following:

· A traffic study would be required before a new landfill could be built.

· New landfills cannot be located closer than 200 feet to a stream or wetland or in a 100-year floodplain.

· New landfills cannot be located within five miles of a national wildlife refuge, one mile of a state gameland, or two miles of a part of the state parks system.

· New landfills cannot have a capacity of more than 55 million cubic yards of waste, a disposal area of more than 350 acres, or a maximum height of more than 250 feet.

· A solid waste disposal tax of $2 per ton is established, with the money going to the Inactive Hazardous Sites Cleanup Fund, local governments which provide solid waste management services to residents, and the Solid Waste Management Trust Fund (in part for local recycling programs).

· A computer recycling requirement is imposed, with manufacturers paying fees to support recycling and reuse programs.

THE FOLLOWING WERE NOT RATIFIED, BUT REMAIN ELIGIBLE FOR CONSIDERATION IN THE SHORT SESSION:

H 1366, School Violence Prevention Act. The bill was amended in the Senate to delete the list of characteristics which could be seen as motivation for bullying or harassing behavior. When the bill was returned to the House for concurrence, it was referred to House Judiciary I.

H 1837, Stem Cell Research Health & Wellness Act, has been passed by the House and is in the Senate Health Care Comm.

S 488, Carrboro Campaign Regulation. Re-referred to House Election Law Comm.

Legislators spent a good deal of time during the closing hours of the session putting together S 1256, 2007 Studies Bill. In the end, however, the House and Senate were unable to agree on a compromise version, so no studies bill was enacted.

In the past, when the houses have been unable to agree on a studies bill, a few studies have been conducted by one house. The Speaker of the House or the President Pro Tem of the Senate could decide to do that again this year, selecting the subjects to be studied and naming committee members.

What follows is a summary of the bill which did not pass, in the version adopted by the House. It is included to give a idea of the breadth of subjects which could have been studied had the bill passed, and which might still be studied by House or Senate study committees. If a proposed study arose from a bill, that bill number is also listed; you can look up the bill on the General Assembly website and get a more complete idea of the subject matter.

Legislative Research Commission

· Littering issues, including the effectiveness of bottle bills (S 1202, H 1673, H 1678)

· Store-based retail health clinics

· Regulate smoking by county ordinance (S 641)

· Tax collection enforcement/illegal immigrants (S 988)

· Fair housing/prohibit discrimination based on receipt of housing assistance (S 334)

· Environmental causes and triggers of cancer (S 66)

· Allow a person to require life-prolonging measures (S 1046)

· Golden LEAF Foundation

· State civil rights enforcement (S 657)

· Wage disparity

· Child care (H 675)

· Disparity in awarding state contracts to minority businesses (H 1337)

· Impact of undocumented immigrants, including both costs and benefits

· Adult adoptees’ access to their original birth certificates (H 2060)

· Work and family life balance (H 1711)

· Election law issues, including instant runoff voting

· Hate crimes (H 1631)

· Capital punishment

· Executing people with mental illness (S 1075)

· Felony murder rule

· Educational assistance for minimum wage workers (H 1550)

· Child support enforcement

Joint Legislative Health Care Oversight Comm.

· Medical errors (S 64, H 136)

· Health care system (H 1897)

Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Comm.

· Transportation of individuals seated in wheelchairs (S 57)

· Licensing of older drivers (H 1606)

Joint Legislative Education Oversight Comm.

· Future-ready core high school graduation requirements, including unintended consequences (S 1532)

· Calculation of dropout rate (S 1110)

· Student mobility and academic achievement (H 1457)

· Financial incentives for students (S 1405)

· School nurses (H 723)

Revenue Laws Study Comm.

· Changing the starting point for state income taxation from federal taxable income to federal adjusted gross income (S 1547, H 1567)

· Earned income tax credit, participation rates

· Along with the State and Local Fiscal Modernization Study Commission, study the issue of applying the sales and use tax to services (H 1564).

Environmental Review Commission

· Mountain resources

· Replacement of incandescent lamps (H 838)

· Farmers “cap-and-trade” program for greenhouse gas emissions (H 962)

· Increase recycling of glass and plastic containers (H 1394)

· Discarded consumer electronics (H 1777)

· Wind permitting

· Phase out lagoon and sprayfield systems (H 1822)

Joint Legislative Oversight Comm. on MH/DD/SAS

· Facilities that provide housing for adults with mental illness in the same location with adults without mental illness (S 1266, H 691)

Joint Legislative Corrections, Crime Control, and Juvenile Justice Oversight Comm.

· Inmate access to education, training, and work release programs (S 1499)

· Dispositional alternatives for juveniles adjudicated delinquent for DWI or underage drinking violations (H 1481)

Study Commission on Aging

· Increasing Medicaid medically needy income limits (S 110, H 92)

Board of Directors of the Health Insurance Risk Pool

· Monitor methods of financing the pool (S 177).

Insurance Commissioner, Industrial Commission, and Department of Health and Human Services

· Creating a system of no-fault compensation for injuries resulting from care in long-term care facilities (S 959).

Department of Health and Human Services and NC Housing Finance Agency

· to address gaps in the housing continuum (S 1266).

Governor’s Crime Commission

· Study including criminal acts of 16- and 17-year-olds in juvenile justice system (H 492).

Department of Administration

· Study disparity in awarding state contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses.

Department of Public Instruction

· delivering services at the high school level to children with disabilities (H 17).

· establish task force to study whether the compulsory school age should be raised in order to have a 100% graduation rate (H 1790).

Department of Correction

· study aging inmate population (H 62).

· expanded study regarding mandatory mental health treatment for incarcerated sex offenders (H 223).

Department of Health and Human Services

· study Special Assistance In-Home Program (H 197).

· study issues related to the adoption of rules allowing rated certificates to adult care homes (H 248).

· study respite care (H 424).

· study compensation of persons sterilized between 1929 and 1975 as a result of the eugenic sterilization program (H 296).

Board of Governors of the UNC System

· study minority faculty and graduates in medicine and dentistry (H 1788).

Department of Environment and Natural Resources

· develop a recycling program for fluorescent lights (H 88).

UNC System

· study the accessibility of its facilities to severely physically disabled individuals (H 1641).

Division of Motor Vehicles

· study the use of handicapped parking placards and parking laws((H 1657).

Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission

· study appropriate penalties for laws making torture, enforced disappearance and related acts unlawful in NC (H 1682).

State Auditor

· study the costs related to capital punishment and the potential savings from its repeal (H 1728).

Utilities Commission

· study health and environmental impacts in reaching least cost determination in electricity generation.

Joint Legislative Study Committee on Public School Funding Formulas (a new committee which would have been established by S 1256)

· study funding formulas, including Children with Disabilities, Limited English Proficiency, At-Risk Student Services/Alternative Schools, Disadvantaged Students Supplemental Funding, Low-Wealth Counties Supplement Funding, and Small County Supplement Funding (H 1391).

Study Commission on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (a new commission which would have been established by S 1256)

· study current system and recommend changes that would better protect the public and better meet the needs of juveniles (H 1686).

Institute of Medicine

· study evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention.

Joint Legislative Study Committee on Complementary and Alternative Forms of Medicine (a new committee which would have been established by S 1256) (H 451).

Joint Legislative Study Committee on High School Graduation and Dropout Rates (a new committee which would have been established by S 1256) (H 452).

Agricultural Disaster Relief Study Commission (a new commission which would have been established by S 1256)

· study the possibility of providing disaster relief to farmers (H 1155).

Joint Legislative Study Committee on Local Management Entity Issues (a new committee which would have been established by S 1256)

· study a variety of issues related to access to mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services that have arisen as LMEs have become responsible for these services (H 1541).

Joint Legislative Study Commission on the Elimination of Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System (a new commission which would have been established by S 1256)

· study disparities that negatively impact children of racial and ethnic minorities and their families (H 1713).

Legislative Services Commission

· hire researchers to study a legislative tuition grant program for private school students (H 2042). The study would have been conducted only if private funds were contributed to support it.