Representative Harry Warren
♦The past ten legislative days were filled with more committee action than action in the House Chamber, and much of that work revolved around local bills, Resolutions and just a few public bills. Several legislative days saw “skeletal” sessions as the House began to schedule around the influx of Senate bills from crossover and the holiday weekend.
I would like to call to your attention several bills that could change the local dynamics for Rowan County, as well as an education bill that has generated a tremendous amount of e-mail support.
Let’s get started with recap of SB 269/HB 260 – Salisbury/Deannex Rowan City Airport Property.
These two bills started out about the same time in their respective Chambers and took slightly different paths to arrive at the same point in time. On April 11, Representative Ford’s bill, HB 260, received a favorable report in the House Government Committee, exactly one month after being assigned there. In the Government Committee, both the City of Salisbury and the Rowan County Commissioners addressing the committee members and presenting their cases. The committee gave a voice vote that sounded as though it were a 2 to 1 margin in favor of the bill. From the Government Committee, the bill was referred to the House Finance Committee, where an ad hoc Subcommittee on Annexations was formed to review all annexation/deannexation bills. The bills sat there for two weeks or more while the newly formed committee waited for the policy staff to determine criteria by which such bills should be vetted. Meanwhile, Senator Andrew Brock’s bill, SB 269, began to move in the Senate. SB 269 passed favorably in the Senate State & Local Government and Finance Committees and passed on the Senate Floor very quickly. On May 16, SB 269 was read in the House and assigned to the House Government Committee, with a serial referral to the House Finance Committee, where it would then be assigned to the Subcommittee on Annexations before being reported to the full Finance Committee. As Chair of the Government Committee, I was able to have the bill by-pass the Government Committee, since it was identical to HB 260 (which had already been passed favorably by the House Government Committee) and send it directly to the Finance Subcommittee to catch up with HB 260. This allowed both bills to be simultaneously considered by the Subcommittee. Both bills were reported out on Thursday, May 23, and added to the full Finance Committee’s agenda for Tuesday, May 28, where SB 269 was favorably reported out and sent to the House Floor. SB 269 was on the House calendar for Wednesday, May 29, and passed by the body with a vote of 101 to 11 on its second reading. As a roll call bill, it is required to have a third reading, which is scheduled for Monday, June 3. Upon passing its third reading the airport deannexation issue will be concluded and the airport will be once again under one taxing authority.
SB 236 - Counties Responsible for School Construction. This bill has generated more than 120 local e-mails from Rowan County residents advocating for and against the measure. SB 236 started out as a “public bill” that would have applied to all 100 counties in the state, but due to a lack of support, the bill morphed into a “local bill,” which only involves nine counties. Senator Andrew Brock added the district he represents, which includes Rowan, Davie and Iredell counties. Senator Brock did not consult with me as to whether or not I wanted Rowan County included. He did not advise me that he was adding Rowan County to the bill. I do not know if he asked Representative Carl Ford or whether he consulted with the county commissioners of any of the three counties involved, or if he made the decision entirely on his own. At this point the bill is in the Committee On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House.
Here is an excellent opportunity to hear Senator Hunt, the bill’s sponsor, explain why he submitted the bill and his justification for it:
“The counties affected by the bill are: Beaufort, Dare, Davie, Guilford, Harnett, Lee, Rockingham, Rowan, and Wake.
“SB 236 is a local bill allowing County Commissions in 10 counties to assume ownership responsibilities of school real property. Senators representing the counties listed in the bill agreed with their county commissioners that this was a good idea.
“Under the bill, School boards would be required to consult with county commissions regarding their school real estate/construction needs and the school boards would retain the management responsibilities for the school property.
“The idea for this change came from a Resolution passed by the Association of County Commissioners. The intent is to allow school boards to have more time to focus on education and allow more business oriented county commissioners to handle the business activities of real estate acquisition and negotiating contracts for the construction of school buildings.
“Another benefit of this legislation includes getting rid of duplicative construction offices. There is no reason for taxpayers to pay for two construction offices. Also balancing assets and liabilities on county books, and saving sales tax money. Again it is totally optional on the part of the commissioners but these 10 counties do want to make this change now. Other counties have expressed an interest but wanted to first see how this worked with these 10 counties.
“This is just common sense legislation taking advantage of commissioners and school boards individual skills as well as saving taxpayer money.”
This is a quote from Senator Hunt’s newsletter:
SENATE BILL 236 – COUNTIES RESPONSIBLE FOR SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION
I have filed Senate Bill 236, a bill to turn over public school construction and ownership from County Boards of Education to County Boards of Commissioners. It has received a lot of attention from the press and correspondence from constituents, so I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the specifics of this bill and why it is important for North Carolina.
Senate Bill 236 will provide savings for county taxpayers across North Carolina. There would be a consolidation of services to save money because Counties already have site/facility acquisition staffs and could absorb those duties. Secondly, Boards of Education pay sales tax on purchases, but Counties do not. Thirdly, Counties rely heavily on bond ratings from Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch. The better the rating a County has, the cheaper the money the County can borrow for all services the County provides. Counties need the benefit of having schools as assets rather than just having liabilities. They already pay for the sites and construction, thus they should own the asset. A financially strong County benefits all citizens.
The biggest reason I have filed this bill is because Boards of Education need to focus on educating students and not on land acquisition and construction. Decisions like these need to be made by business people, not educators. County commissioners tend to have business backgrounds (see below), whereas school board members tend to have education backgrounds, which are great for educating our children. County commissioners are better suited at making these types of business decisions.
I have done some research to find the occupational backgrounds of our urban Boards of Education and Boards of Commissioners. I investigated the four biggest counties/school systems in North Carolina: Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Forsyth, and Durham Counties. 62% of county commissioners have business backgrounds compared to 9% of school board members. 41% of school board members have backgrounds in education compared to 16% of county commissioners. Below are two pie charts showing the occupational backgrounds of county commissioners and school board members from the aforementioned counties (my office has the county-by-county results if you’re interested):
Businesspeople know how the market works, how to strike the best land deals, how to build better buildings, etc., thus it makes sense for them to be responsible for the construction and ownership of school buildings. Educators know how to teach students, thus they should stay focused on educating our children.
Sincerely, Neal Hunt
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HB 504 – Local Electronic Notice. This was another bill that generated a lot of angst for local communities and local newspapers. The bill is a repeat from the 2011-2012 Session, a bill which was defeated in the Government Committee last year. The bill proposes to allow government entities to fulfill their legal requirement to publicly post legal notices (zoning changes, meeting times, special hearings, etc.) by posting them on their web site(s) as opposed to utilizing the local newspaper. The bill has provisions that make the switch a transitional process and also includes a limited time of direct mail notification. While this step could save some government entities (municipalities, county commissions) substantial amounts of money, the question of whether or not it is truly fulfilling the mandate of providing a constituent service is debatable. Opponents maintain that the demographic that utilizes these notices is generally older and accustomed to looking for these notices in their local paper. Additionally, they contend that many older constituents are not computer savvy and those that may be would be inconvenienced by having to visit several web sites daily to find out what is going on. Advocates claim that newspapers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past with dwindling readership. They claim that most people get their news electronically today, and that this method of messaging will save thousands of dollars. While I understand both sides of the issue, I believe the bill is four or five years ahead of its time, but that eventually it will pass.
Additional bills that you should be aware of and I encourage you to become familiar with:
HB 944 - The Opportunity Scholarship Act. This education bill creates a “scholarship” program allowing a reimbursement of up to $4,200 to parents who elect to send their child to a private school or a school that is specifically geared to address their child’s educational needs. Opponents of the bill argue that it is a drain of tax dollars away from the traditional public schools and sends that money to private and/or religious schools, which they contend do not perform as well as public schools and have lower standards. Proponents of the bill counter that such claims are defensive and unfounded and that parents should have the authority to make education choices for their child. Additionally, they point out that the parents are taxpayers, so it is only a portion of their own money that they are getting to help fund their child’s education. I have received over 693 e-mails on this bill and would have to guess that less than 75 have been against the bill.
HB 998 – Tax Simplification and Reduction Act. This bill was just presented to the House Finance Committee on Thursday for discussion only. This is the House’s proposal for revising the state’s taxation system. This plan is considerably different from the Senate’s proposal, which relies heavily on expanding the state sales tax on goods and services, including food and medicine. The House proposal reduces the personal income tax to a flat rate of 5.9%, changing the existing graduated tax rates of 6.75% – 7% and 7.75%. It also reduces the corporate income tax from the current rate of 6.9% to a rate of 5.4% over a five-year period. While the sales tax does expand to include some services not currently taxed, those services are generally in regards to entities that are already collecting sales tax and have procedures in place for collection and remittance of the taxes. For example, when you buy tires for your vehicle, you pay a sales tax on them but not on the labor to have them put on your car. Under this bill, you would be paying a sales tax on the labor. Thursday was my first view of the bill, and I will be studying it over the weekend.
The House is working on finalizing their budget proposal, having had the advantage of first seeing those of the Governor and the Senate. Each budget has revealed what the drafters have established as their priorities and what they were funding and what they felt needed to be reduced in funding. I do not serve on any of the Appropriations Committees or subcommittees that are responsible for drafting the House budget. I have served on the Finance Committee since being elected to serve. Soon, however, the subcommittees will be sharing their preliminary drafts, and I will have an opportunity to see where they are heading. In the meantime, I am letting various committee members know what I am hearing from home in regards to funding and reductions.
Sincerely, Harry
N.C. House of Representatives District 77, Rowan County
611 Legislative Office Building Raleigh,
North Carolina 27603
(919) 733-5784
