As of today, the NC General Assembly leadership has not agreed upon spending targets. We anticipate an agreement within the next two weeks. As you are aware, the Governor has vetoed the recent attempts at a state budget. We remain optimistic that the executive branch and legislative branch will work to address their differences to develop a 2021–22 budget.

We have worked with partners including ACHC to develop a legislative proposal that is adopted in House Bill 727 (https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2021/H727). We are working with legislative leadership and hope that the language and funding in this bill will be included in the budget. We should note that we have worked to develop this legislation with FORLTC and they have stated that they are neutral on the proposed legislation.

House Bill 728 has a portion of the proposal that we would like to see included in the state budget (https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2021/H728). The legislation was filed to provide us with a placeholder. We recently met with House leadership and believe that the legislation is under consideration.

This issue has become a controversial topic with lawmakers. In hopes of finding a compromise position with HHS, we provided HHS with the proposal included in Rep Wray’s proposed legislation(https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2021/H726). As of today, we have not received a definitive response from HHS. At our request, legislators and staff are also contacting HHS in hopes of gaining their support. Without HHS support, it would be extremely difficult to advance this legislation as many lawmakers expressed concerns when similar legislation was offered earlier in the year. Lastly, it should be mentioned that we have been in communication with FORLTC and they are opposed to our compromise proposal.

There are many changes being discussed to our CON laws. Of the bills that have been introduced, Senate Bill 462 is the most likely to become law. We have worked with lawmakers to attempt to protect CON holders from good faith delays in development.