Monday, March 21, 2011

Monday Hot Topics: Coming This Week in the NC General Assembly

This week the House and Senate Appropriation Subcommittee on Health and Human Services will continue to hear presentations on key budget topics. On the agenda for Tuesday is Health Choice and on Wednesday there will be a presentation of possible consolidation options.

A few key bills will see action this week. On the House floor HB 234: Juror Qualifications/Disabilities will get a third reading and final vote before heading to the Senate. We will be following the floor debate regarding this bill. We expect to see at least one amendment that will only affect the ability for a person over the age of 66 to request a deferment of jury duty.

In the Senate Mental Health and Youth Services, members will be presented SB 316: Add'l Section 1915 Medicaid Waiver Sites-(Sponsor: Senator Fletcher Hartsell). This is the bill that will remove the current restrictions on expansion of the 1915 b/c waiver sites that was placed in special provisions during the previous budget cycle.

We are also waiting on more details regarding the projected revenue picture. Under the Blog-N&O blog had a recent post that stated that the state tax revenue was above the projections but non tax revenue was bellow projections. How these numbers shake out is important as we near subcommittee budget presentations. On that topic, House Education Subcommittee has stated there will be no additional meetings for presentations to the committee. The members of this appropriation subcommittee are beginning to create what will become their budget.

Read the report:General Fund-March Report: Fiscal Research Division.

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