NOTE: Click HERE to see information the Department of Insurance has put on their website relative to changes impacting auto insurance with regard to UM/UIM, SDIP and increase of mandatory minimum limits to 50/100/50 that take effect July 1^st.

After weeks of speculation that the negotiations between the NC House and Senate would not produce a compromise state budget by the July 1^st start of the state government fiscal year, GOP legislative leaders acknowledged this week they are in fact stuck.

NC House Speaker Destin Hall told reporters earlier this week that a budget won’t be ready until ‘after June,’ with Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger offering that it was ‘pretty clear’ there’d be no budget before the legislature’s announced intention to recess after next week.

Senator Berger did indicate that before leaving town next week the state Senate would take up a $450M House proposal for additional assistance for Helene recovery efforts, adding to the nearly $1.6B in funding the General Assembly has already authorized for western North Carolina communities impacted by the storm.

Also this week

It was a fast and furious week at the NC General Assembly, with a variety of legislative proposals heard in committees and by both chambers that were compilations of other bills, as well as bills that have passed the House but were gutted and the contents replaced by proposals favored by the Senate (and vice versa).

Among those were:

• HB 737 that contains a number of provisions on the IIANC legislative agenda was passed unanimously by the Senate and now heads to the House for a vote next week. Sponsor of the bill, IIANC member Senator Todd Johnson, expressed optimism (based on conversations with House Insurance Committee chair and fellow IIANC member Representative Chris Humphrey) the House will concur next week and the bill will go to Governor Stein for his signature before the legislature recesses.
  
  
• SB 479, that was originally the Senate’s version of proposed changes to the regulation of pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), was rewritten in the House to incorporate some components of HB 162 (the House’s reversion of proposed PBM regulation changes). 
  
  The Senate voted to not concur with the House changes, so the bill will now go to conference, in which a few Senators and House members selected by the Senate President Pro Tem and House Speaker (usually the primary sponsors of the legislation and/or chairs of the relevant committee based on the subject matter) try to work out the differences between the two chambers.

• Chairs of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators Danny Britt, Warren Daniel, and Buck Newton inserted into HB 315, which originally dealt with the theft of gift cards, two new provisions when it was heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week – one to prohibit third-party litigation funding (TPLF) and the other to increase the amount awarded injured workers under the state’s worker’s compensation law.
  
  Through a coalition of business associations, including IIANC, there have been ongoing negotiations with the Advocates for Justice, the organization representing trial lawyers in North Carolina, on a variety of issues relative to the state’s workers compensation law, but the provisions inserted in this legislation came as a surprise. The bill will be heard in the Senate Rules Committee next week.

• The last-minute inclusion into HB 442 of a provision to ban commercial fishing in North Carolina coastal sounds prompted heated debate when the bill came before the full Senate, as the four state Senators who represent coastal communities argued the proposal would decimate the commercial fishing industry. The bill was approved by the Senate and now heads to the House.

And finally...

IIANC lobbyist Joe Stewart conducted a Thinkers Breakfast in the Legislative Cafeteria on Tuesday morning, where state lawmakers heard from noted economist and retired NCSU professor Dr. Michael Walden on the current state of North Carolina’s economic landscape.

Also on Tuesday, Stewart moderated a bipartisan panel discussion featuring four freshmen members of the General Assembly discussing how their personal and professional backgrounds guide them when they deal with public policy issues that impact the state’s business community.

The lunch event was jointly hosted by IIANC and the state’s chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), and a few of the IIANC members who attended the event met afterwards with state legislators, including IIANC member Senator Todd Johnson and House Insurance Committee chair Representative Jennifer Balkcom.