News-Record.com

Currently, North Carolina has a program titled the One North Carolina Fund, which helps North Carolina recruit new businesses and helps existing North Carolina businesses expand. In the last four years, the One North Carolina Fund has helped create more than 16,000 jobs.

Senate Bill 967 expands the number of businesses that are eligible for help from the One North Carolina Fund by including small businesses (100 or fewer employees). Small businesses, previously excluded from the benefits of the One North Carolina Fund, can now get North Carolina help to expand their businesses, as well as state help to apply for federal grants intended to help small businesses.

Small businesses are the backbone of our economy - more than 90 percent of North Carolina's businesses have 100 or fewer employees. Helping new businesses leverage these grants will not only help create jobs, but it will spur technology and innovation in our state.

The bill also extends another critical job-creation tool. The Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) program is currently scheduled to expire in 2006. Since the Investment Grant program's inception in 2003, over 9,700 jobs have been created and $1.42 billion has been invested in North Carolina as a direct result of this program. Because of the success of this program in expanding our economy, SB 967 delays the expiration date of JDIG to 2008.

I also had the honor this week of addressing Coalition 2001, an organization of different groups intent on protecting the needs of North Carolinians with disabilities, which rallied on the lawn behind the legislative building; it was a pleasure to meet so many of the Guilford residents who were able to come to Raleigh to attend the event.

Best regards,

Kay R. Hagan

Next - and last - I'll tap Rep. Pricey Harrison, but her whole e-mail is rather long so I'm not going to put it all here. But I have a sneaking suspicion you might be able to find the contents over at her own blog:

Greetings from Raleigh,

The new "crossover" deadline for passing legislation from one chamber to the other is June 2. It previously was May 19 and was extended to accommodate the unusually large number of bills introduced during this session. What this means is, to remain eligible for future consideration, any bill that does not have a fee/tax or appropriation attached to it has to be passed by the chamber in which it was introduced by June 2.

UPDATE ON TWO OF MY BILLS

House Bill 1328, "Pardon/Expunction of Record" Yesterday the House unanimously passed HB 1328, which would provide for the expunction of records for someone who has been granted a pardon of innocence. I learned from Darryl Hunt that, despite the fact that he had been exonerated from his conviction, and had received a pardon of innocence from Governor Easley, he still carried a first degree murder conviction on his record. After doing some research, I learned that there is no automatic opportunity to clear one's record once granted a pardon of innocence. Only a handful of pardons of innocence have been granted over the past two decades, and the standards for qualifying are quite high. Other pardons are also available (conditional pardon and unconditional pardon), and more frequently granted.

House Bill 1295, "New Motor Vehicles Warranties"
The Committee on Judiciary 1 discussed my lemon law bill (HB 1295) yesterday. The bill is meant to make the lemon law more consumer friendly by encouraging car manufacturers to settle claims more quickly. Current law requires the owner of a lemon to continue to pay the manufacturer for the privilege of driving the car, which has been determined to be a lemon, while negotiations for a settlement take place. This can sometime take months, and many can't afford to buy another car while negotiating with the manufacturer.

BUDGET UPDATE
Members of the House Appropriations Committee continued working this week on their budget proposal following passage of the Senate's budget two weeks ago and expect to pass a House budget by June 9. Our goal is to work out the differences between the House and Senate budgets prior to July 1 when the new fiscal year begins.

House Appropriations Subcommittees have been encouraged to draw up a budget that takes a different look at state spending allocations than those in the Senate proposal. House Speaker Jim Black has suggested spending targets and is encouraging members to spend less than the Senate budget, in order to minimize the need for new revenue. Many difficult choices lie ahead, but I remain committed to adequately funding education, health and human services, transportation, public safety, the environment and efforts to further strengthen our economy and create jobs.

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Cheers,
Pricey