Legislation filed in the North Carolina Senate this week would allow snow-bound school systems to schedule fewer than 180 instructional days in a school year.
N.C. Sen. Andrew Brock, who represents Rowan and Davie counties, is a primary sponsor of the bill. It would waive the state’s 180-day requirement due to inclement weather, as long as the system meets a minimum of 1,000 hours of instruction during at least nine months. Teachers and other school employees would get credit and compensation for the full 180 instructional days.
The title of the bill says it addresses “school days missed by mountain counties due to inclement weather,” but no particular counties are specified in the rewritten statute.
Brock also is co-sponsoring legislation filed this week to permit campaign signs in the rights-of-way of state highways, with some restrictions on the timing, location and type of the signs. In addition, he is listed as a co-sponsor on bills requiring that the state’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions be no more stringent than federal regulations.
N.C. Rep. Fred Steen is a primary sponsor on a bill “authorizing the utilities commission to obtain criminal history record checks of applicants for and current holders of a certificate to transport household goods.” N.C. Rep. Harry Warren is co-sponsoring the bill.
Steen also is seeking to adopt stock car racing as the official sport of North Carolina. He is the primary sponsor of a bill filed this week.
Warren is not named as a primary sponsor this week on any new bills.
He is listed as a co-sponsor on legislation to decrease the corporate income tax rate from 6.9 percent to 4.75 percent. This would lower the credit remitted to the Public School Building Capital Fund from 7.2 percent to 1.1 percent of the net collections from the Department of Revenue.
Warren also is co-sponsoring bills exempting firearms from federal regulation under the commerce clause and requiring disclosure on bond issue referendums of the amount of interest that would be incurred on debt.