The official end to the legislative short session is July 11, but the NC General Assembly completed the majority of its work on June 27.  A small number of legislators will remain until July 11 to deal with any vetoes from the Governor. They are expected to reconvene on September 2 to review revenue numbers, make any needed adjustments, and allocate any additional federal COVID funds. 

 

As expected, a series of mini-budgets were passed to address funding for Medicaid, Health and Human Services, Education, and other areas of government. Federal COVID funds were also allocated. 

 

Below are bills that we have been monitoring and reporting on during the session.

 

PASSED:

 

H1169 – Bipartisan Election Act of 2020 – addresses the ability to vote by absentee ballot. By requiring only one witness signature and allowing for an online ballot request process, it is intended to make voting easier as we head into election season in the midst of COVID 19 pandemic. It also contains amendments that would allow the use of other government funded identification in addition to a DMV issued ID. These amendments would apply if a photo ID is required to vote in the future. A photo ID is not required for the November election.

 

S476 – School Based Mental Health - Requires the state board of education to adopt a school-based mental health policy and to require k-12 school units to adopt and to implement a school-based mental health plan that includes a mental health training program and a suicide risk referral protocol.

 

S808 – Medicaid Funding Act – includes appropriations for several purposes including funds for moving DHHS offices from the Dix Campus (removing the requirement that DHHS move to Granville County), COVID relief funds for behavioral health and crisis services ($50 million to address budget shortfall), funds for Medicaid, and Medicaid Transformation reserve funds. This bill also makes changes to the methods related to medicaid savings in LME/MCOs giving DHHS oversight for the use of savings generated by the LME/MCOs. It also delays implementation of the Standard Plan to July 2021. 

 

H1023 – Coronavirus Relief Funds – includes numerous allocations including $5 million to Division of MHDDSA for 122C group homes that serve people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities for implementation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for preventive measures to control the spread of COVID-19 in these facilities. This bill also allocates $5 million to Dept of Public Instruction for grants to schools to address critical needs for Exceptional children whose services were affected by COVID.

 

H77 – Adjust the Department of Transportation Certified Budget – makes several modifications related to operations of the Department of Transportation. One of the modifications was to the Rural Operating Assistance Program (ROAP) that funds transportation in rural areas for elderly people and people with disabilities. The original budget included over $18 million and this was reduced to zero and replaced with $10 million from federal COVID funds. There was significant concern expressed from the DD community about this reduction in funds that will impact needed transportation, but the bill ultimately passed. We will need to continue to educate about the potential impact of this cut. There may be opportunity to fix this in the September session.

 

PASSED – but Vetoed by Governor

 

S168 DHHS & Revisions – contains a large number of changes to state law including a developmental disability definition correction to align NC statutes with the federal definition*, state-funded services co-payment clarifying language, and authorization for federal block grant funding. The bill also included an amendment added during the conference committee process that public records experts believe would limit public information on death records. There has been significant concern and protest about this amendment. For that reason, the bill was not signed by the Governor. On the same day of the veto by the Governor, S 232 was introduced by the Senate to repeal the section of S168 that deals with death investigation records. It is unclear how this will be resolved, but the intent is to have a resolution that gets rid of the ‘public information on death records’, but retains the needed legislation in the remaining part of S168.

 

*This is the specific correction to the definition in NC statute in the bill:

Developmental disability. – A severe, chronic disability of a person that satisfies all of the following:

a. Is attributable to one or more impairments a mental or physical impairment or combination of mental and physical impairments.

 

DID NOT PASS:

 

H1149 - Police Notice of Person w/ IDD in Vehicle – directed the Division of Motor Vehicles to develop a designation for drivers’ licenses that may be granted upon request to a person with IDD. There were significant concerns about having this information stored within the DMV database with potential for discrimination in renewal of licenses.

 

H488 - Address Direct Support Professional Staffing Crisis – would have addressed rates paid to Intermediate Care Facilities to address the lack of a comparable increase to rates paid for similar state facilities and help address the shortage of direct support professionals in facility-based IDD services. The bill also contained a study for similar Direct Support Professional shortages and rate issues in community-based Innovations waiver services.

 

H1181 - Certain Appropriations For Education/COVID – would have allocated funds to educational entities to address issues related to COVID 19. It included $25 million to Department of Public Instruction for grants to public schools to address COVID related costs for students with disabilities.

 

H1196 - Funds/COVID-19 Tests & PPE for Congregate Living – would have allocated $12 million from the Coronavius Relief Funds to conduct testing for staff in congregate living settings and distribute Personal Protective Equipment to congregate living settings.

 

H1173 – Disapprove Certain DHHS Rules – this bill proposed to disapprove a list of rules that have already been approved by the Rules Review Commission. One of the rules was related to screening and care for people with IDD in jail settings, which is a set of rules that has been vetted and approved by several IDD entities and seen as a positive step in addressing issues in jails. There was significant opposition to this bill in the IDD community. We are glad the rules for jail settings can be implemented.

 

S730 – No Patient Left Alone Act – addressed the visitation rights of hospital patients to have someone present while receiving hospital care. This bill modified several times during the legislative process and amendments were added that included funding for UNC for contact tracing and funding for small businesses. The Senate did not agree with the changes made by the House so the bill was not approved.

 

* There were funds allocated to DHHS for Medicaid, for Medicaid transformation, for LME/MCOS to address budget shortfalls, and for IDD group homes to address COVID-19; yet, the huge waitlist for IDD services was not addressed in any of the mini-budgets during this session.