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2017 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Education and Health

Chairman: Stephen D. Newman

Staff: Thomas Stevens
Date of Meeting: February 2, 2017
Time and Place: 8:00 A.M. - Senate Room B

S.B. 829

Patron: Wexton

Public schools; suspensions. Directs the Board of Education to establish guidelines for alternatives to short-term and long-term suspension for consideration by local school boards.

S.B. 951

Patron: Ruff

School service providers; student access to collected personal information. Requires school service providers to provide each student or his parent with access to a downloadable electronic copy of any student personal information pertaining to such student that has been collected, maintained, used, or shared by the school service provider. The bill requires such electronic copy to be in a machine-readable format.

S.B. 983

Patron: Favola

Children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing; parent resource; tools or assessments for educators; report. Requires the Division of Special Education and Student Services of the Department of Education to (i) select, with input from an advisory committee that it establishes, language development milestones and include such milestones in a resource for use by parents of a child from birth to age five who is identified as deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing to monitor and track their child's expressive and receptive language acquisition and developmental stages toward English literacy; (ii) disseminate such resource to such parents; (iii) select existing tools or assessments for educators for use in assessing the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing; (iv) disseminate such tools or assessments to local educational agencies and provide materials and training on their use; and (v) annually produce a report, using existing data reported in compliance with the federally required state performance plan on students with disabilities, that compares the language and literacy development of children from birth to age five who are deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing with the language and literacy development of their peers who are not deaf, deaf-blind, or hard-of-hearing and make such report available to the public on its website. The bill is a recommendation of the Disability Commission.

S.B. 995

Patron: Stanley

Student discipline; long-term suspension. Reduces the maximum length of a long-term suspension from 364 calendar days to 45 school days. The bill prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond the current grading period unless aggravating circumstances exist and prohibits a long-term suspension from extending beyond the current school year.

S.B. 996

Patron: Stanley

Public schools; student discipline. Provides that no student shall receive a long-term suspension or expulsion for disruptive behavior unless such behavior involves intentional physical injury or credible threat of physical injury to another person.

S.B. 997

Patron: Stanley

Public schools; student discipline. Prohibits students in preschool through grade five from being suspended or expelled except for drug offenses, firearm offenses, or certain criminal acts.

S.B. 1017

Patron: Barker

School attendance officer; powers and duties. Authorizes a school attendance officer or local school division superintendent or his designee acting as an attendance officer to complete, sign, and file petitions and motions for the enforcement of certain orders entered by a juvenile and domestic relations district court. The bill also provides that a nonattorney attendance officer or local school division superintendent or his designee acting as an attendance officer performing the powers and duties of an attendance officer is not considered the practice of law.

S.B. 1082

Patron: Wexton

School principals; incident reports. Eliminates the requirement that school principals report certain enumerated acts that may constitute a misdemeanor offense to law enforcement.

S.B. 1089

Patron: Sturtevant

Public schools; Standards of Learning assessments. Reduces the total number and type of required Standards of Learning assessments to the minimum requirements established by the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, P.L. 89-10, as amended.

S.B. 1098

Patron: Newman

Public schools; standards for accreditation. Requires that the regulations establishing standards for accreditation adopted by the Board of Education ensure that the accreditation process is transparent and based on objective measurements and that any appeal of the accreditation status of a school is heard and decided by the Board.

S.B. 1099

Patron: Newman

Standards of Quality; assessments; terms. Changes the term used to refer to certain assessments to "locally developed assessments" from "alternative assessments." Under current law, two distinct assessments are referred to as "alternative assessments." To provide further clarity, the bill also requires local school boards, when administering the locally developed assessments, to distinguish between locally developed assessments and Standards of Learning assessments.

S.B. 1117

Patron: McPike

School counselors; licensure. Requires every person seeking initial licensure or renewal of a license with an endorsement as a school counselor to complete training in the recognition of mental health disorder and behavioral distress, including depression, trauma, violence, youth suicide, and substance abuse.

S.B. 1141

Patron: Sturtevant

Certificate of public need; psychiatric beds and services. Repeals the requirement for a certificate of public need for certain projects involving mental hospitals or psychiatric hospitals and intermediate care facilities established primarily for the medical, psychiatric, or psychological treatment and rehabilitation of individuals with substance abuse. The bill creates a new permitting process for such projects, exempted from the certificate of public need process, that requires the Commissioner of Health to issue a permit upon the agreement of the applicant to certain charity care conditions and quality of care standards.

S.B. 1163

Patron: Reeves

School principals; incident reports. Provides that school principals are not required to report criminal misdemeanors or status offenses to law enforcement if in the principal's discretion, based on a totality of the circumstances and consistent with Board of Education guidelines, such report is not warranted. The bill requires the Board of Education, in consultation with the Department of Juvenile Justice, the Office of the Attorney General, and any interested stakeholders, to update its Student Conduct Policy Guidelines to provide guidance for principals in exercising such discretion.

S.B. 1222

Patron: Barker

Acute psychiatric patient registry. Directs the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services to develop and administer a web-based acute psychiatric patient registry to collect, aggregate, and display de-identified information about individuals who meet the criteria for temporary detention to facilitate the timely identification of a facility for temporary detention and treatment of the individual. The bill requires each community services board and behavioral health authority in the Commonwealth to update information contained in the acute psychiatric patient registry to include information about a person found to meet the criteria for temporary detention and requires private providers to identify patients for whom they are able to provide temporary detention and treatment and to contact the state facility, community services board, or behavioral health agency having custody of the individual to facilitate the transfer of the patient to the provider for temporary detention and treatment.

S.B. 1233

Patron: Chafin

Temporary detention; certified evaluators. Allows emergency physicians, psychiatrists, and certain psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychiatric clinical nurse specialists, licensed clinical psychologists, licensed professional counselors, and licensed clinical social workers to perform evaluations to determine whether a person meets the criteria for temporary detention for mental health treatment in cases in which an employee or designee of the community services board is not available to perform an evaluation within two hours of receiving notification that an evaluation is required.

S.B. 1234

Patron: Dunnavant

Public institutions of higher education; transferable credits. Requires the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (Council), in consultation with each public institution of higher education, to develop a passport credit program that will be offered at each associate-degree-granting public institution of higher education. Under the program, each passport credit course shall satisfy a lower division general education requirement at any public institution of higher education, and any student who completes a passport credit course at an associate-degree-granting public institution of higher education shall be permitted to transfer all such credit hours earned to any public institution of higher education to which the student has been admitted and apply such credit hours toward the general education requirements at such institution. The bill requires the Council to develop such program by June 1, 2018 and each associate-degree-granting public institution of higher education to offer such program by the 2018-2019 academic year.

S.B. 1235

Patron: Ebbin

Family life education; required. Requires each local school board to implement the Standards of Learning for the family life education program developed by the Board of Education or a family life education program consistent with the guidelines developed by the Board.

S.B. 1240

Patron: Dunnavant

Virginia Virtual School established. Establishes the Board of the Virginia Virtual School (the Board) as a policy agency in the executive branch of state government for the purpose of governing the full-time virtual school programs offered to students enrolled in the Virginia Virtual School (the School). The Secretary of Education is responsible for such agency. The 14-member Board is given operational control of the School and assigned powers and duties. Beginning with the 2019-2020 school year, the bill requires the School to be open to any school-age person in the Commonwealth and to provide an educational program meeting the Standards of Quality for grades kindergarten through 12, with a maximum enrollment of 5,000 students statewide. The bill requires the average state share of Standards of Quality per pupil funding for each enrolled student to be transferred to the School.

S.B. 1246

Patron: Stuart

Comprehensive Services for At-Risk Youth and Families; special education programs. Grants, for a period of three years, eligibility for funding from the state pool of funds available through the Comprehensive Services for At-Risk Youth and Families program to children and youth placed for purposes of special education in a public school special educational program established and funded jointly by a local governing body and school board pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement for the purpose of providing special education, related services, or both within a public day program, when the public school special educational program is able to provide services comparable to those of an approved private school special educational program, and the student would require placement in an approved private school special educational program but for the availability of the public school special educational program.

S.B. 1283

Patron: Obenshain

Public schools; regional charter school divisions. Authorizes the Board of Education (Board) to establish regional charter school divisions consisting of two or more existing school divisions in regions in which one or more of the underlying school divisions have an enrollment of more than 3,000 students and one or more schools that have accreditation denied status for two out of the past three years. The bill requires such regional charter school divisions to be supervised by a school board that consists of eight members appointed by the Board and one member appointed by the localities of each of the underlying divisions.

The bill authorizes the school board, after a review by the Board, to review and approve public charter school applications in the regional charter school divisions and to contract with the applicant. The bill requires the state share of Standards of Quality per pupil funding of the underlying school district in which the public charter school is physically located transferred to such school.

S.B. 1327

Patron: Carrico

Licensure of doctors of medical science. Establishes criteria for license as a doctor of medical science and establishes the Advisory Board on Doctors of Medical Science.

S.B. 1335

Patron: Surovell

Access to electronic textbooks and adequate connectivity. Prohibits local school boards from requiring the use of any electronic textbook in any course in grades six through 12 unless the school board adopts a plan to ensure that by July 1, 2019, (i) each student enrolled in such course will have access to a personal computing device capable of supporting such textbooks and (ii) the relevant school has adequate connectivity, which the bill defines as bandwidth of at least one megabit per second per student.

S.B. 1346

Patron: Surovell

Associate-degree-granting institutions; transfer credit information. Requires each associate-degree-granting institution of higher education to (i) designate in its course catalog each course that is offered in an associate degree program at such institution and is transferable for course credit to a baccalaureate public institution of higher education and (ii) provide information on the State Transfer Tool to all enrolled students.

S.B. 1359

Patron: McPike

Local school boards; school buildings; potable water; lead testing. Requires each local school board to develop and implement a plan to test potable water from sources identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as high priority as often as is required of the supplying public water system by the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water, giving priority in such testing plan to schools whose school building was constructed, in whole or in part, before 1986. The bill requires such plan and the results of each such test to be posted on the local school board's website and transmitted to and archived by the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water. The bill stipulates that if the result of any such test indicates a level of lead in the potable water that is at or above 20 parts per billion, the school board shall develop, implement, and post on its website a plan to remediate the level of lead in the potable water to below 20 parts per billion and confirm such remediation by retesting the water at two consecutive six-month intervals.

S.B. 1371

Patron: Saslaw

Virginia Research Investment Committee. Expands the role of the Virginia Research Investment Committee (the Committee) to include, in addition to awarding grants and loans from the Virginia Research Investment Fund, providing guidance and coordination in the use of public funds to support research and commercialization efforts throughout the Commonwealth. The bill moves responsibility for the development of the Commonwealth Research and Technology Strategic Roadmap from the Center for Innovative Technology to the Committee.

The bill also clarifies that the exemption from mandatory disclosure of records under the Freedom of Information Act by applicants for grants and loans from the Committee applies to certain financial records, trade secrets, and research-related information. The bill requires an applicant seeking to invoke the protections of the exemption to submit a written request to the Committee identifying the records or data for which protection is sought and stating the reason why protection is necessary. The exemption would also apply to documents prepared exclusively for the application review by the Committee, its staff, or a reviewing entity conducting a scientific review at the request of the Committee. The closed meeting exemption would also be amended to include interviews of applicants by the Committee or a reviewing entity conducting a scientific review.

The bill contains technical amendments.

S.B. 1375

Patron: Cosgrove

Certificate of Public Need program. Makes changes to the Medical Care Facilities Certificate of Public Need program. The bill (i) removes specialized centers or clinics or that portion of a physician's office developed for the provision of lithotripsy, magnetic source imaging (MSI), or nuclear medicine imaging from the list of reviewable medical care facilities; (ii) provides that establishment of a medical care facility to replace an existing medical care facility with the same primary service area does not constitute a project; (iii) removes introduction into an existing medical care facility of any new lithotripsy, MSI, or obstetrical service that the facility has never provided or has not provided in the previous 12 months and addition by an existing medical care facility of any medical equipment for the provision of lithotripsy and MSI from the definition of project; (iv) creates a new process for registration of projects exempted from the definition of project by the bill; (v) establishes an expedited 45-day review process for applicants for projects determined to be uncontested or to present limited health planning impacts; (vi) renames the State Medical Facilities Plan as the State Health Services Plan and establishes a State Health Services Plan Advisory Council to provide recommendations related to the content of the State Health Services Plan; (vii) clarifies the content of the application for a certificate; and (viii) reduces the timeline for a person to be made party to the case for good cause from 80 calendar days to four days following completion of the review and submission of recommendations related to an application.

The bill also (a) directs the Department to develop recommendations to reduce the duration of the average review cycle for applications for certificates of public need to not more than 120 days and to report on its recommendations to the Governor and the General Assembly no later than December 1, 2017; (b) directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to review charity care services delivered throughout the Commonwealth and recommend changes to the definition of charity and to the types of charity care requirements imposed on various health care services and report to the Governor and the General Assembly by December 1, 2017; (c) directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to convene a group of stakeholders to study and make recommendations related to the appropriate authority of the State Health Commissioner to impose additional conditions on certificates; (d) directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to implement a system to ensure that data needed to evaluate whether an application for a certificate is consistent with the State Health Services Plan is timely and reliable, to make all public records pertaining to applications for certificates and the review process available in real time in a searchable, digital format online, to make an inventory of capacity authorized by certificates of public need, both operational and not yet operational, available in a digital format online, and to make charity care conditions, charity care compliance reporting status, and details on the exact amount of charity care provided or contributed and to whom it was provided or contributed available in a digital format online; (e) directs the Commissioner of Health to develop an analytical framework to guide the work of the State Health Services Plan Advisory Council; and (f) directs the Joint Commission on Health Care to develop specific recommendations for eliminating differences in the certificate of public need review process from one region to another and report on the recommendations to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions and Senate Committee on Education and Health by December 1, 2017.

S.B. 1380

Patron: Petersen

Regional school boards; full-time virtual school programs. Requires the establishment of eight regional school boards composed of one member of each local school board that governs each local school division in each of the eight superintendent's regions in the Commonwealth and requires each such regional school board to enter into a contract with at least one approved multidivision online provider to operate a full-time virtual school program for students enrolled in each local school division in such region. The bill contains provisions relating to student eligibility, educational standards, and funding for such full-time virtual school programs. The bill requires each local school board to make the option to participate in a full-time online learning program or full-time virtual school program available to at least two percent of students enrolled in the local school division and permits school boards to satisfy such requirement by providing the option to participate in the full-time virtual school program offered by the relevant regional school board.

S.B. 1389

Patron: Mason

Institutions of higher education; letter certifying good standing of certain students. Requires institutions of higher education that include notations on the transcripts of students who have been suspended for, have been permanently dismissed for, or withdraw from the institution while under investigation for offenses involving sexual violence under the institution's code, rules, or set of standards governing student conduct to require the dean of students or similar such individual at any other institution of higher education within or outside the Commonwealth to submit to it a letter certifying the good standing of any student who seeks admission to the institution that requires the letter of certification and who, at the time such student withdraws from the other institution of higher education within or outside the Commonwealth, is determined to be in good standing according to the institution's code, rules, or set of standards governing such a determination and is not under investigation or subject to any pending institutional proceedings for a violation of the institution's code, rules, or set of standards governing student conduct.

S.B. 1414

Patron: Newman

Students receiving home instruction; participation in Advanced Placement and Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test examinations. Requires school boards to (i) make Advanced Placement (AP) and Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT) examinations available to students receiving home instruction, (ii) adopt written policies that specify the date by which such students shall register to participate in such examinations, and (iii) notify such students and their parents of such registration deadline and the availability of financial assistance to low-income and needy students to take such examinations.

S.B. 1419

Patron: Howell

Temporary detention; minimum time period. Provides that a person held pursuant to a temporary detention order shall be held for up to 24 hours once admitted to the facility, as determined by the treating physician at such facility, to be reasonably necessary. Currently, a person may be held pursuant to a temporary detention order for up to 72 hours, but there is no requirement that a person subject to such order be held for any minimum time period.

S.B. 1430

Patron: Reeves

Higher education; student mental health; post-crisis services. Requires that policies developed and implemented by public institutions of higher education regarding suicide prevention ensure that after a student-death-related crisis affected students have access to appropriate medical and behavioral health services, including postvention services. The bill defines postvention services as services designed to facilitate the grieving or adjustment process, stabilize the environment, reduce the risk of negative behaviors, and prevent suicide contagion. The bill requires the Council to develop guidelines regarding such policies and to review the policy of each public institution of higher education at least once every four years.

S.B. 1475

Patron: McClellan

Family life education; curriculum guidelines and curricula. Makes changes to family life education curriculum guidelines and curricula, including (i) requiring family life education curriculum guidelines to include instruction as appropriate for the age of the student in the benefits, challenges, responsibilities, and value of family relationships for men, women, children, and communities; (ii) amending the definition of "abstinence education" for the purposes of such curriculum guidelines; and (iii) permitting the age-appropriate elements of effective and evidence-based programs on sexual violence that are required to be incorporated into any high school family life education curriculum offered by a local school division to include instruction that increases student awareness of the fact that consent is required before sexual activity.

S.B. 1476

Patron: McClellan

Department of Education; training for hearing officers in teacher dismissal hearings; list of trained hearing officers. Requires the Department of Education to (i) develop and make available to each local school board a program of training for hearing officers who preside over teacher dismissal hearings that includes information on the statutory procedure for teacher dismissal hearings and (ii) develop, maintain, and make available to each local school board a list of hearing officers who have completed such program of training.

S.B. 1477

Patron: McClellan

Students with blindness or visual impairments. Makes several changes to provisions relating to students with blindness or visual impairments, including (i) requiring a learning media assessment (LMA) to be administered as part of the initial evaluation and each reevaluation of each student with blindness or visual impairments or more frequently, if such student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) team so determines and requiring instruction in Braille reading and writing and accommodations for materials in Braille to be included in the IEP of a student with blindness or visual impairments commensurate with his IEP team's determination of his needs based upon the results of such LMA and (ii) requiring the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired to assist the Board of Education and each local school board with ongoing professional development for teachers of students with blindness or visual impairments, including knowledge of and instruction in Braille and the administration and evaluation of LMAs.

S.B. 1500

Patron: Favola

School Health Advisory Board. Establishes the School Health Advisory Board in the executive branch to advise the General Assembly on pending legislation concerning health policy that affects elementary and secondary schools.

S.B. 1511

Patron: Deeds

Advance directives; mental health treatment; capacity determinations. Amends procedures for advance directives to (i) provide that in cases in which a person has executed an advance directive granting an agent authority to make decisions regarding admission to a facility for mental health treatment, the determination that the person is incapable of making an informed decision regarding such care or admission may be made by the attending physician or a psychiatrist, licensed clinical psychologist, licensed psychiatric nurse practitioner, or designee of the local community services board following an in-person examination and (ii) provide that a person's agent may make a health care decision over the protest of the person if, in addition to other factors, at the time the advance directive was made, a licensed physician, licensed clinical psychologist, licensed physician assistant, licensed nurse practitioner, licensed professional counselor, or licensed clinical social worker who was familiar with the person attested in writing that the person was capable of making an informed decision and understood the consequences of the provision. The bill also clarifies that admission of a person to a facility for mental health treatment by an agent acting pursuant to an advance directive shall be subject to the statutory requirements relating to admission of an incapacitated person pursuant to an advance directive.

S.B. 1516

Patron: Black

Public schools; dyslexia advisor. Requires one reading specialist employed by each local school board to have training in the identification of and the appropriate interventions, accommodations, and teaching techniques for students with dyslexia or a related disorder and to serve as an advisor on dyslexia and related disorders.

S.B. 1517

Patron: Black

School transportation; fees. Authorizes a school board to charge a reasonable fee, when it provides transportation to pupils who live outside the school division, to each pupil utilizing such transportation. The bill requires that the school board waive such fee for any pupil whose parent is financially unable to pay it, including any pupil who is eligible for free and reduced lunch. The bill contains technical amendments.

S.B. 1523

Patron: Mason

Teacher turnover; exit questionnaire.

S.B. 1534

Patron: Sturtevant

Public institutions of higher education; course credit; dual enrollment courses. Requires the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), in consultation with the governing board of each public institution of higher education, to establish a policy for granting undergraduate course credit to any entering freshman student who has successfully completed a dual enrollment course at a comprehensive community college pursuant to an agreement for postsecondary degree attainment. The bill requires SCHEV and each public institution of higher education to make the policy available to the public on their websites.

S.B. 1537

Patron: McPike

Certain school board employees; training program on bullying. Requires each school board to require each school board employee in the local school division, including student support positions but excluding all other support services positions, to participate in a three-hour in-person or online training program on identifying, preventing, and responding to incidents of bullying. The bill requires each such training program to include information on bullying that is provided by the National Council for Behavioral Health. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2018.

S.B. 1546

Patron: Vogel

Drug Control Act; Schedule I. Adds certain chemical substances to Schedule I of the Drug Control Act. The Board of Pharmacy has added these substances to Schedule I in an expedited regulatory process. A substance added via this process is removed from the schedule after 18 months unless a general law is enacted adding the substance to the schedule. The bill also removes two substances, benzylfentanyl and thienylfentanyl, from Schedule I. The bill contains technical amendments.

S.B. 1556

Patron: Newman

Board of Education; graduation requirements. Requires the Board of Education's graduation requirements to require a student to earn at least one verified credit in each of the following subjects: mathematics, reading, writing, science, and history and social science. The bill requires a student to achieve a passing score on the associated end-of-course Standards of Learning assessment to earn a verified credit. The bill prohibits the associated end-of course Standards of Learning assessment from being diluted or replaced by another assessment.

S.B. 1561

Patron: Dunnavant

Emergency Department Care Coordination Program established. Establishes the Emergency Department Care Coordination Program in the Department of Health to provide a single, statewide technology solution that connects all hospital emergency departments in the Commonwealth to facilitate real-time communication and collaboration between physicians, other health care providers, and other clinical and care management personnel for patients receiving services in hospital emergency departments, for the purpose of improving the quality of patient care services.

S.B. 1566

Patron: Dunnavant

Certificate of public need; reports. Makes changes to the Medical Care Facilities Certificate of Public Need Program. The bill (i) removes psychiatric facilities, specialized centers or clinics or that portion of a physician's office developed for the provision of ambulatory or outpatient surgery, lithotripsy, magnetic source imaging (MSI), or nuclear medicine imaging, and certain specialized centers or clinics or portions of hospitals for the provision of neonatal special care services from the list of reviewable medical care facilities; (ii) provides that establishment of a medical care facility to replace an existing medical care facility with the same primary service area does not constitute a project; (iii) removes introduction into an existing medical care facility of any new lithotripsy, magnetic source imaging, or obstetrical service that the facility has never provided or has not provided in the previous 12 months and addition by an existing medical care facility of any medical equipment for the provision of lithotripsy and magnetic source imaging (MSI) from the definition of project; (iv) creates a new process for registration of projects exempted from the definition of project by the bill; (v) establishes an expedited 45-day review process for applicants for projects determined to be uncontested or to present limited health planning impacts; (vi) renames the State Medical Facilities Plan as the State Health Services Plan and establishes a State Health Services Plan Advisory Council to provide recommendations related to the content of the State Health Services Plan; (vii) clarifies the content of the application for a certificate; and (viii) reduces the timeline for a person to be made party to the case for good cause from 80 calendar days to four days following completion of the review and submission of recommendations related to an application.

The bill also (a) directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to review charity care services delivered throughout the Commonwealth and recommend changes to the definition of charity and to the types of charity care requirements imposed on various health care services and report to the Governor and the General Assembly by December 1, 2017; (b) directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources to implement a system to ensure that data needed to evaluate whether an application for a certificate is consistent with the State Health Services Plan is timely and reliable, to make all public records pertaining to applications for certificates and the review process available in real-time in a searchable, digital format online, to make an inventory of capacity authorized by certificates of public need, both operational and not yet operational, available in a digital format online, and to make charity care conditions, charity care compliance reporting status, and details on the exact amount of charity care provided or contributed and to whom it was provided or contributed available in a digital format online; (c) directs the Commissioner of Health to develop an analytical framework to guide the work of the State Health Services Plan Advisory Council; and (d) directs the Joint Commission on Health Care to develop specific recommendations for eliminating differences in the certificate of public need review process from one region to another and report on the recommendations to the Chairmen of the House Health, Welfare and Institutions and Senate Education and Health Committees by December 1, 2017.

 

S.B. 1577

Patron: Peake

Alternative onsite sewage systems; sampling. Prohibits the State Board of Health's program on alternative onsite sewage systems from requiring effluent sampling from certain alternative onsite sewage systems except in response to a complaint or as part of a random inspection conducted by the Department of Health.

S.B. 1584

Patron: Suetterlein

High school graduation requirements; verified credit; locally selected, nationally recognized high school academic assessments. Requires the Board of Education, in establishing high school graduation requirements, to provide for the award of verified units of credit for satisfactory scores on locally selected, nationally recognized high school academic assessments approved by the Board in lieu of the correlated Standards of Learning assessments.