General Assembly Changes County Requirements for Appointing LME Boards

In North Carolina, public mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse services are provided through local government agencies called area authorities (also called “local management entities” or “LMEs”). Each board of county commissioners, either singly or jointly with other boards of county commissioners, must establish and fund an area authority to serve their citizens. (G.S. 122C-115).  They also must appoint the “area board” (or, LME board), the body that governs the area authority. (G.S. 122C-118.1). Earlier this week, the General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 191 that, among other things, changes the compositional requirements that counties must adhere to when appointing LME board members. Read more »

Two Implications of the Supreme Court’s Health Care Decision for North Carolina

UPDATE: In March 2013, North Carolina enacted legislation declining Medicaid expansion and directing state agencies and institutions not to participate in the implementation of a health benefits exchange in North Carolina. See S.L. 2013-5, summarized here. 

Readers of this blog are no doubt well aware that the Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) yesterday. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius has already been summarized and analyzed in dozens of forums and I won’t repeat that. If you’re looking for a quick summary, SCOTUSblog offers a “Plain English” wrap-up here. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, Justice Ginsburg authored a concurrence, four Justices (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito) issued a joint dissent, and Justice Thomas wrote a separate dissent. The Supreme Court’s website has the opinions – all 187 pages – for you to read at your leisure.

States have a significant role in implementing the ACA provisions that are intended to extend insurance coverage to individuals who are presently uninsured. This post describes two aspects of that role and the steps North Carolina has taken or may take to carry them out. Before I write about that, I want to acknowledge that a great deal of background work on state implementation has already been undertaken by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM). In 2010, the state Departments of Insurance and Health & Human Services asked the NCIOM to convene several workgroups to study ACA implementation and make recommendations. Eight workgroups on several matters, including the two discussed in this post, were convened and developed recommendations that were published in this report. Read more »

Annexation Reform: Referendum Replaces Petition to Deny

In 2011, the legislature substantially revised the annexation laws. Among other changes, the 2011 annexation reform law, summarized here, gave property owners in the annexed area the ability to petition to deny the annexation. These changes applied to annexations in process on or initiated after the effective date of the law. In addition, by separate local acts, the legislature applied the new petition-to- deny procedure to several specific annexations that had been completed. The petition process in these jurisdictions took place last summer, and several of the affected cities challenged the petition process on constitutional and other grounds.  In March, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled that the petition process in the local acts, as well as in the general law, was unconstitutional. The legislature responded by stripping out the petition provisions in the general law and replacing them with a requirement for a referendum. Under the new law a city may not undertake an involuntary annexation unless a majority of registered voters in the area to be annexed vote in favor of it. The bill became law on June 10, 2012 without the Governor’s signature, and applies to involuntary annexation ordinances adopted on or after July 1, 2012. This post summarizes the new annexation requirements. Read more »

Changes in Store for Public Guardians?

UPDATE September 2013:  H 1075 was not enacted but the guardianship provisions discussed above were transferred to S 191, which was enacted as S.L. 2012-151.

If a court or jury finds that a person is incapacitated, the Clerk of Superior Court may appoint one or more guardians to manage affairs and make decisions for the person. Some are guardians of the person, some are guardians of the estate, and some serve in both roles (a general guardian).  Often a family member, friend or other individual serves as the guardian but the clerk also may appoint a “disinterested public agent” to serve as a person’s guardian. Directors and assistant directors of the various human services agencies – departments of social services, area mental health authorities, public health departments, and county aging agencies – currently serve in this role. Sometimes the public agencies contract with a private organization, such as ARC of North Carolina, to serve as the guardian.  The General Assembly is considering legislation that would require Clerks to assign all such appointments to the departments of social services. Why is this happening? What would some of the implications be? Read more »

Sales Assessment Ratios Continue to Climb

The housing market in some areas of the state may be improving, but a new study by the N.C. Department of Revenue suggests that real estate values remain generally sluggish across the state.

The Department of Revenue’s annual sales assessment ratio study compares property tax assessments with actual sales prices for real property throughout a given county. If a ratio is greater than 100%, then that county’s tax assessments are on average higher than actual market values. During “normal” economic times a county’s ratio will gradually decrease in between county-wide reappraisals, because the tax assessments remain constant while real estate prices gradually increase.

We haven’t seen “normal” economic times since the Great Recession arrived, of course. Prior to 2009, each year we’d see only a handful of counties with sales assessment ratios at or above 100%. But in recent years, more and more counties are learning that their real property is on average overvalued for property tax purposes.

Last year, nearly half of the counties hit or exceeded 100%, which was astounding. The trend accelerates this year. In the soon-to-be-released 2012 sales assessment ratio study, more than two-thirds of our counties broke the 100% threshold. Equally surprising is the fact that the average sales assessment ratio statewide is now over 100% (it’s 104%, to be exact). Clay County leads the pack with a ratio of 142%, while Union County makes history as the first county to trigger the mandatory reappraisal provision added to the Machinery Act in 2008.

What does this all mean? Read more »

County Commissioners and Local Boards of Health: What Would Pending Legislation Allow, and What Would it Mean?

There has been a great deal of activity around local public health agency (LPHA) organization and governance during the 2011-12 legislative session. We at the SOG have blogged about it several times and we are posting regular legislative updates here. At present, two nearly identical bills—H 438 and S 433—have passed both chambers but need concurrence votes before they may be enacted. It’s possible one of the bills will be enacted quite soon, so stay tuned to our legislative updates page for the latest developments.

At least half a dozen bills have addressed LPHA governance at some point during the 2011-12 legislative session. The bills have addressed different issues at different times, but one concept that has consistently surfaced has been the removal of the population threshold from G.S. 153A-77—the state law that presently allows a county with a population exceeding 425,000 to abolish any or all of its human services boards, including the board of health, and transfer the powers and duties of the abolished board(s) to the county commissioners. (The law also allows a county meeting the population threshold to create a consolidated human services agency, but that’s not what this post is about. For more about consolidated human services agencies, see here  and here.) At present, North Carolina has three counties with populations exceeding 425,000: Guilford, Mecklenburg, and Wake. Mecklenburg county has exercised its authority under existing law to abolish its board of health. If the population threshold is removed, any county could take this action.

What would it mean for the county commissioners if the board of health were abolished? What new powers and duties would the board acquire? Read more »

Who is an owner “of record” to be served with complaints and orders under NC minimum housing codes?

John Spartan serves as the senior housing code official for the town of San Angeles, NC, where he recently presided over his 100th minimum housing hearing. He has overseen the repair or removal of many unfit homes over the years, and he is careful to ensure that his town’s minimum housing code keeps up with changes to the authorizing statutes: Minimum Housing Standards, Part 6 of Article 19 of G.S. Chapter 160A. For example, he adjusted his inspection procedures to comply with the 2011 residential inspections law, and he ensured that town council adopted modifications to its minimum housing code to comply with changes to the minimum housing statutes back in 2009. And he carefully follows the procedural flowchart that he found in a School of Government publication on minimum housing codes. But he’s never been completely comfortable with one part of the minimum housing process: identification of a property’s “owner” and “parties in interest” who are to be notified of any complaints or orders. Properly identifying the “owner” of an unfit dwelling can be tricky on occasion, and it has been the subject of litigation in North Carolina courts over the years. Lenina Huxley, the town attorney, wants to update him on a North Carolina Court of Appeals case, Patterson v. City of Gastonia, that was decided in May 2012. She wants to discuss how the town should identify an owner “of record” following some ambiguous remarks in the case. Ambiguity is never fun in his line of work, so he reaches for a bottle of aspirin before setting out for her office…. Read more »