The Asheboro/Randolph Chamber participates in weekly meetings with the NC Chamber's Government Affairs team, reviewing new legislation and its impact on job creators. This week's meeting included an overview of the General Assembly's recent activities:
This week's update:
A bill that includes more than $2 billion in COVID-19 spending measures sped its way through the General Assembly, earning unanimous approval in both the House and Senate before landing on Governor Cooper's desk Thursday. Senate Bill 36 provides funding support for educational, governmental, and health care priorities like vaccine distribution and extends a number of deadlines for spending federal COVID-19 relief funds allocated to North Carolina in 2020. Among these deadline extensions, the bill gives parents of school-aged children who missed out on an expired $335 "Extra Credit Grant" until May 31 to apply for this opportunity.
Senate Bill 36 also provides $39 million to the GREAT grant program, supporting grants for private broadband providers to enhance broadband infrastructure in rural North Carolina. The increased dependence on remote work and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted the digital barriers facing our state's rural, unserved areas.
It is expected additional COVID-19 relief legislation will be filed in the coming weeks. In the meantime, many of the bills introduced so far have been local bills, those with measures applying to one or more specific local governments. In both the House and Senate, the filing deadline for local bills falls before the deadline for public bills - those bills affecting 15 or more counties - which means the beginning of session often sees a large wave of local bills filed in both chambers. In the next few weeks, it is likely that we will see substantially more public bills introduced with broader statewide impacts.
If there is specific legislation that is of interest to
your business or industry, please let us know!
