The Raleigh Report
From the Office of Cullie Tarleton
July 7, 2008
Budget negotiators finished their work late last Thursday. We are voting this week on the budget. While I certainly would have liked to do more for our state employees, teachers and retirees, I think we did the best we could with the amount of money we had to work with. I expect we’ll adjourn perhaps as early as next week now that the budget is done. I’ll have more to say about the specifics of the budget in next weeks report.
We continue to move important legislation. Last week, the House approved a nine-month moratorium on involuntary annexation and made changes to improve our education system.
If you have any questions about the work of the General Assembly or if I can help in any way, please feel free to contact me. Thank you for your interest in state government and I hope all of you had an enjoyable Fourth of July. Sylvia and I had all our children and grandchildren here. The grandchildren and I did the Boone and Blowing Rock parades, plus we were at the Christmas in July celebration in West Jefferson.
Municipalities
The House approved a nine-month ban on involuntary annexation to allow lawmakers time to study the nearly 50-year-old law and propose changes. Original language in the bill (H2367) would have banned annexation for a year, but the time period was trimmed to allow some municipalities with pending annexation proceedings to proceed. The moratorium will run from the end of August through May 2009. I was able to get voluntary annexation removed from the bill so I supported it. The bill now goes to the Senate.
Education
School buses would no longer be subject to duplicate inspections under a House bill approved this week. Current law requires school buses to receive inspections required by the State Board of Education and the Division of Motor Vehicles. The proposal (H2265) would eliminate the requirement for the DMV inspection. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The House Education Committee has approved a bill (H15), which I co-sponsored) that would allow teachers to use personal leave during teacher workdays without having to pay for a substitute. Current law requires teachers who use personal days to pay a fee that is used to pay for substitute teachers. They must also pay the fee if they use personal leave on a teacher workday, when students aren’t present.
The General Assembly has appointed two members to the board that oversees the state’s 58 community colleges. The House of Representatives appointed Wallace attorney Anita Powers to a slot that expires next June. The Senate gave former community college instructor Naomi Daggs a term that ends 2011. Daggs was the English department chair at Richmond Community College before retiring last year.
Elections
The House Committee on Election Law and Campaign Finance Reform agreed this week to extend an instant runoff voting pilot program through 2011. Instant runoff voting requires voters to rank candidates by preference, allowing vote counters to name a winner without holding a second election. Runoff elections are expensive and often have low turnout. The proposal (S1263) allows for instant runoff voting in partisan primaries and nonpartisan general elections in as many as 10 counties and 10 municipalities. The bill now goes to the House Judiciary I committee. After such a poor turnout for the recent runoff election, I think we need to change the law.
Justice
People who are wrongfully convicted would receive $50,000 for every year they spent in jail if they were exonerated. Existing law allows only $20,000 a year and caps the total award at $500,000. The bill (H2105) would increase the cap to $750,000 and allow free job training and tuition for community colleges and public universities.
Environment
The House agreed this week to a measure that will require the state to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles. The proposal (H2720) requires new state vehicles to be in the top 15 percent of their class in fuel efficiency. Law enforcement, emergency medical response and firefighting vehicles are exempt. The state purchased about 1,050 vehicles in the last fiscal year that would not be exempt from the requirements.
Notes
I was pleased to get one of my bills, H1076, passed last week. The bill waives fees for folks 65 and over at our UNC system Schools and Community Colleges and becomes effective August 1, 2008.
The Environmental Committee I serve on started hearings on the Governor’s Drought Preparedness and Response bill last week. I feel very strongly about our state doing more to prepare for and manage problems associated with the drought. Watauga County is still in an extreme drought condition and Ashe County in a severe drought condition. There are many parts of the bill I like and some that I don’t. For instance, I don’t like the section dealing with the regulation of private wells and will vote to strip that section out of the bill. I do believe those with private wells should practice the same conservation measures others use during times of severe and extreme drought. Even though we’ve had some good rainfalls recently for which I’m very thankful, we still need to practice good conservation measures when it comes to the use of water. I will also discuss with the committee ways to do more in the area of promoting water conservation measures.
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