Just like everything else in 2020, the North Carolina General Assembly is adapting to changing circumstances rapidly and adjusting legislative plans fairly often. At the moment, it appears that they wrapped up business for the summer and plan to return for a brief time beginning September 2 (but maybe sooner?).  Have you managed to keep track of the legislation?  I know I certainly haven’t.  If you want a little help combing through the details, please join us for the next installment of our 2020 Local Government Legislative Review Webinar on Friday, July 17 from 10-12.  Read on for more details.

You may recall that we offered Part 1 of our 2020 Legislative Review Webinar back in May. The program focused primarily on the immediate actions the legislature took in the spring related to the unfolding pandemic. If you missed that program, you can register for the on-demand version here.

Part 2 is scheduled for this coming Friday and registration details are available here. While some of the topics are related to the pandemic, the legislature also took action in several other areas that are of interest to local governments. The topics we plan to cover are:

• Emergency management
• COVID-19 immunity
• Medicaid transformation
• Juveniles and jails
• Land use law and planning
• Elections

In addition, I asked Christine Wunsche, the director of our our Legislative Reporting Service (LRS), to share some insight about what might be coming down the pike this summer and when the legislature reconvenes. Maybe she’ll be able to predict whether we’ll have a Part 3 – or even a Part 4?

If you like to review or track all of the bills yourself, please remember that the LRS website is an amazing FREE resource and is packed with tools and information. I couldn’t do my job without it!