Agenda 8-a - Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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5 secretary, and is in Washington, DC. She said Secretary Cohen amended this waiver, and did 1 not have to go through the General Assembly (GA); and as part of that waiver, she included 2 Carolina Cares, a Medicaid expansion proposal, which includes a work provision. 3 Representative Verla Insko said there has been an increase in funding for Smart Start 4 and early childhood education, and there is bipartisan support for these services; but the State 5 is still below the 2007 funding levels. 6 Representative Verla Insko referred to mental health funding, and said as hospital beds 7 were closed, funding was supposed to go into building community based facilities, which never 8 happened. She said expanding Medicaid would help provide mental health services to the 9 uninsured. She said the funds that were saved by closing hospitals went into Medicaid mental 10 health services, but only for those who are Medicaid eligible. 11 Senator Valerie Foushee addressed item #6: Raise Age for Juvenile Jurisdiction in 12 Criminal Court. She said this was accomplished in the 2017 budget, and will go into affect on 13 December 1, 2019. 14 Representative Graig Meyer referred to item #20: Broadband/Digital Infrastructure, and 15 said the Bright Futures Act passed the House in the last session, and has a good chance of 16 passing in the Senate. He referred to item #240: bona fide farm use, and said he negotiated a 17 study of the bona fide farm use to be put into one of the agricultural oversight committees. He 18 said he has been watching the committee agendas, and this has never been added to one. He 19 said he is unsure why, but will continue to pursue it. He referred to item #33: Agricultural 20 Economic Development, and said he thinks there will be continued efforts from the Legislature 21 to support the growth of the industrial hemp industry, and possibly helping to support the 22 development of a privately owned processing center that would be convenient for farmers. 23 Chair Dorosin said this is the list in the packet is from last year, and the Board will make 24 a new list. 25 Senator Valerie Foushee referred to item #15: Voter Registration and Voting, and said 26 all of this has been accomplished, with the exception of restoring straight party ticket voting and 27 public financing. 28 Commissioner Marcoplos asked if it is useful for the Board to hone down to 2 or 3 well- 29 defined issues, or to provide a laundry list of more generic issues. 30 Representative Verla Insko said a prioritized package is useful, and it is effective to 31 send something to them as the issue is on the agenda. 32 Senator Valerie Foushee said it is helpful for the County to include a resolution. 33 Commissioner Price asked if there is any update about the reduction in class sizes for 34 K-3. 35 Representative Graig Meyer said after the special session bill, which was an attempted 36 fix to this issue, it is now known that the class size mandate is going to be delayed by one full 37 year, and then staged in over four years. He said there is a pledge to provide additional funding 38 of specials classes, which will increase annually over the four years. He said there are two 39 problems: 1.) the formula used for the new funding allotment is less generous than the standard 40 per pupil allotment, so school districts are still going to be short on teachers; and 2.) there is still 41 no capital funding for increasing school facility space to meet the mandate of the class size 42 dropping. He said a verbal pledge was given by legislative leaders to address capital needs 43 during the short session. He said the House has been broadly supportive of a schools 44 infrastructure bond to try and address the massive capital needs of schools across the State, 45 but the Senate has not taken up this issue, nor expressed much interest. He said he has no 46 predictions about work actually being done on school capital needs. 47 Representative Verla Insko said she expected this bill will come to the House, and may 48 be able to be passed. She said the smaller class mandate is not possible for many school 49 districts to accomplish without significant capital increase, and building new classrooms. 50