Human services bill stalls on House floor

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By Todd McGee
Communications Director

A bill to allow counties greater flexibility in organizing human services appeared to have strong support in the House of Representatives during the General Assembly's Nov. 27-29 mini-session, but the legislation was unable to be considered on the House floor, where it became hung up by a procedural issue.

As passed by the Senate in late April, S433 (Local Human Services Administration) would accomplish an NCACC legislative goal to "allow county flexibility to organize local human services" by eliminating the stipulation that only counties with populations of at least 425,000 can merge their human services functions into a consolidated board or place those functions under the board of county commissioners' oversight. The Senate version largely kept in place the current models followed by Mecklenburg and Wake counties, but would allow a board of county commissioners to choose to have the county's human service employees subject to provisions of the State Personnel Act.

When the bill reached the House in May, the House Health and Human Services Committee made several substantial changes to the bill before sending it to the floor for full consideration. It was scheduled to be heard before the General Assembly adjourned in mid-June, but the bill was pulled from the calendar at the last minute.

When the General Assembly returned to Raleigh on Nov. 27 for its final scheduled mini-session of 2011, S433 was among the short list of bills eligible for action. The revised version was put on the House calendar for Nov. 28, but members of the House eventually decided that they should go back to the version passed by the Senate in order to expedite its enactment. The Senate was preparing to adjourn and could not consider any House changes.

The bill was returned to the House Health and Human Services Committee for a meeting the morning of Nov. 28. During the meeting, NCACC Executive Director David F. Thompson told committee members that many counties were interested in the increased authority and flexibility.

The committee then voted to send the original bill back to the House for its Tuesday afternoon session. Because the House committee had originally given an "unfavorable" report to the Senate bill during its consideration in June, the House needed a two-thirds vote to pull the bill off the "unfavorable" calendar before the Senate version could be considered. This arcane Rule 37 had not been invoked since the 1980s, according to legislative staff.

When the motion was made to remove it from the unfavorable calendar, the bill received 74 votes – three shy of the two-thirds majority needed, but more than 50 percent.

"Such a large majority is a direct result of the phone calls and emails that were made by county commissioners," said Thompson. "It is a testament to our membership and their advocacy efforts that this issue made significant progress this session. The Association intends to achieve this goal before the end of the 2011-2012 session of the General Assembly."

Because the bill did pass the Senate, it remains eligible for House action during the 2012 Short Session, which begins May 16.