Gov. Roy Cooper signed the final two bills of this year's legislative session late Thursday.
One bill would create new regulations for home assistance services for seniors and people with disabilities. The services provide people who help with errands, provide companionship, and do household tasks — but aren't nurses or trained medical professionals. The services will now need to go through a licensure process.
Rep. Larry Potts, R-Davidson and a sponsor of the bill, says the legislation helps "differentiate between them and a home health agency."
The other bill would help firefighters get more insurance coverage for cancer treatment through a state-funded program, which Cooper called "much needed." North Carolina's firefighters have long pushed for more comprehensive cancer coverage, because they often contract the disease as a result of their work and exposure to smoke and toxins.
Cooper says he opposes another provision in that bill that takes power away from the state's elected commissioner of insurance.
"I am signing this bill because of the important changes for firefighters, but I strongly disagree with the unconstitutional legislative intrusion into the executive authority of state officials by directing employment of individual state employees," Cooper said in a news release.
The rest of Senate Bill 409 is something of a grab-bag of unrelated legislation that lawmakers sought to pass before largely adjourning until next spring. The other provisions would:
- Add tougher criminal penalties for financial crimes and for stealing cargo from trains, trucks, planes, or boats
- Create a pilot program allowing law-enforcement agencies to put license plate readers along state-maintained roads
- Tweak the criminal laws dealing with people who provide "obscene literature" to young people
Legislative leaders have scheduled brief monthly "check-in" sessions between now and the 2024 short session that begins in April. But barring any unexpected developments such as court rulings, they don't plan to hold any votes during those sessions.