City of Alexandria, Virginia
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: JANUARY 26, 2015
TO: THE HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF CITY COUNCIL
FROM: MARK B. JINKS, ACTING CITY MANAGER /s/
DOCKET TITLE:
TITLE
Update On The 2015 General Assembly Session.
BODY
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ISSUE: Update on the 2015 General Assembly Session.
RECOMMENDATION: That City Council approve the legislative positions included in Attachment 1 (Recommended Positions on Bills of Importance to the City), as recommended by City Council's Legislative Subcommittee.
DISCUSSION: The 2015 General Assembly Session began on January 14 and is scheduled to adjourn on February 28. The deadline for the introduction of legislation was Friday, January 23. As of January 24, 2,270 bills and resolutions have been introduced. Many of them deal with perennial issues, such as absentee voting, restoration of civil rights to felons who have completed their prison time, transportation funding, and mental health.
City Package. The following bills seek the enactment of proposals addressed in the City's legislative package. Attachment 2 is a more detailed status report on city package bills.
· HB 1682 and SB 1218 are Charter bills, introduced at the City's request to "clean up" the City Charter. SB 1218 was reported out of committee unanimously, and is now on the Senate floor. HB 1682 will be heard in Subcommittee on Wednesday (January 28) morning.
· HB 1867 would clarify some of the Virginia Code sections dealing with mold remediation in residential rental units. It also seeks to require that tenants be made aware of, and given access to, any written documents produced by the landlord or his contractor relating to the removal and remediation of the mold. It will likely be considered in Subcommittee on Tuesday (January 27).
· A number of constitutional amendments have been proposed in both the House and the Senate to provide for the restoration of civil rights for persons who have been convicted of nonviolent felonies, but completed their sentence, probation, and parole. None of these have yet been considered by the committees to which they were assigned.
· Legislation was introduced to direct some recordation tax revenues into the Housing Trust Fund, but that bill has been defeated.
· Various bills seek to raise the minimum wage. At least one of these has already died in the Senate. All the others are also likely to be defeated.
· A provision of our City Package calls for support of Attorney General Mark Herring's ruling that students who are not American citizens, but whose presence had been approved under the federal DACA program, can become eligible for in-state tuition. Bills to reverse this ruling were introduced in the House and the Senate. The Senate bill (SB 722) was defeated; the House bill (HB 1356) has not yet been considered in committee. Another bill (HB 1478) would place into law the Herring opinion; it has not yet been heard.
· Legislation to regulate Transportation Network Companies is being considered in the House and Senate. It does not include any provisions affecting the City's regulation of taxicabs. The bills do include most of the consumer protections that the City has recommended.
· Legislation to "Ban the Box" (prohibit State agencies from asking on employment applications whether the applicant has ever been charged with or convicted of any crime, unless the position was a "sensitive" one) was introduced in the House and Senate. The House bill has already been defeated.
· Legislation was introduced in both houses to further limit the interest that can be charged on payday and car title loans; the Senate bill has already been defeated.
· Legislation has been introduced that would limit the retention of police department license plate reader data to 7 days or less. City Police and police throughout Virginia are seeking authority to retain this data for up to 6 months. None of these bills has yet been considered in committee.
· Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion legislation has been introduced, but no one expects it to pass.
· Various measures have been introduced to reform the decennial redistricting process. The one that appears to have the greatest chance at passage at this time is SJR 284, with bipartisan patrons. It seeks to amend the State constitution to require the creation of the Virginia Redistricting Commission. The Commission would be given authority to redraw congressional and General Assembly district boundaries after each census. It would consist of 7 non-legislative, non-lobbyist members. Four would be appointed by the legislative leaders of the two major parties in the General Assembly; the other three would be Virginia's Auditor of Public Accounts, the State Inspector General, and the Executive Director of the State Bar. The Commission would be required to devise Congressional and General Assembly redistricting plans (to be approved by at least 5 of the 7 members) that would respect political boundaries as much as possible, and be composed of compact, contiguous territory.
· Several bills seek to amend the State Code and the Virginia Constitution to recognize same sex marriage; committees to which the bills have been assigned have yet to act on them.
· No bills were introduced to increase court costs to help support law libraries; and no proposals to earmark State funds for the City's CSO remediation efforts were included in the Governor's budget bill.
Transportation Issues. The major transportation legislation of this Session is HB 1887, a proposal from the Governor. Among other things, the bill creates a new formula for distributing State funds for highway construction. The current formula (which is not actually used, since there is no money allocated for it) gives each area of the State (and in the case of cities and large towns, each locality) a certain amount of money annually to fund their construction needs. The new formula will allocate funds primarily on the basis of demonstrated need for specific construction projects (i.e., it must be shown that a certain project will address congestion, safety needs, etc., better than other projects that have been proposed). The bill also provides increased funding for transit needs.
Other transportation bills of significance include:
· HB 1470 (La Rock) would require NVTA transit projects to undergo the same rating process as road projects. The bill was reported out of subcommittee.
· HB 2159 (Krupicka) would require drivers to stop (not just yield) to pedestrians in marked crosswalks. This bill, which the City has supported in past years, is scheduled for subcommittee consideration on Monday January 26).
· HB 2170 (Minchew) seeks to combine NVTC (Northern Virginia Transportation Commission) with NVTA (Northern Virginia Transportation Authority). All Northern Virginia localities conducted a study of such mergers of regional bodies several years ago and recommended that this not be done.
E-Cigarettes. Bills have been introduced to prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. Other legislation would levy state taxes on this product, and would also authorize localities to do so.
Child Day Care. Following coverage in the Washington Post of deaths in recent years at unregulated child day care centers-as well as actual deaths that occurred and were widely reported in 2014-many bills have been introduced to further regulate these facilities. Most of these bills are trying to address the following issues:
· Current restrictions on the number of children that can be cared for before a facility must be licensed do not include in the count the children of the provider. Several bills would require them to be included in the count of total children.
· Current law does not require a facility with fewer than six children to be licensed by the State (although Arlington and Fairfax Counties and Alexandria do regulate these smaller facilities). Some General Assembly members have proposed legislation that would have the State regulate all facilities; it is unlikely that this big a regulatory change will be approved.
· Bills have been introduced, with support from the Administration, to require any facility that receives State funds to be licensed by the State, no matter what the size.
· Other legislation would require facilities not licensed by the State to register with, and be subject to random monitoring by, the State.
Renters. HB 1451 seeks to make a number of changes in landlord and tenant laws. One in particular could potentially affect tenants in the City when there are redevelopments of rental property in the future. Current law allows landlords to force renters to leave their apartments with 30 days' notice if they are on a month-to-month lease in most cases. If, however, the property is being sold, redeveloped, converted to a condominium, or changed to some other use, the landlord must give the tenant 120 days' notice to vacate. HB 1451 would eliminate the 120 day notice requirement, so that month-to-month tenants would never be required to be given more than 30 days' notice.
City staff is concerned about tenants in future redevelopments and conversions, and recommended that the City oppose the bill (Council's Legislative Subcommittee concurred with this recommendation). Unfortunately, City staff have been unable to find other localities or tenant-support organizations to support the City in its opposition to this provision in the bill.
Ethics Issues. The General Assembly is continuing to consider legislation to reform Virginia's ethics laws as they apply to elected officials. Legislation passed this year will likely put much more stringent dollar limits on gifts that can be received by elected officials.
State Budget. On December 17, 2014, Governor McAuliffe announced his proposals for changes to the biennial budget. Fortunately, he did not propose any new reductions for local governments. Among the items of interest to the City are these:
· Local Aid to the State will continue in FY 2016, but it will not increase over the amount we had to give back in FY 2015 ($633K)-in fact, the Governor proposed a slight decrease in the funds that must be returned to the State.
· Funding for K-12 education was increased slightly.
· HB 599 local law enforcement funding will remain at its current level.
· Additional funding was added to the appropriation for the State to pay localities the jail per diems it owes (for State prisoners held in local jails). The amount proposed by the Governor should be sufficient to fully fund this program for the remainder of the fiscal year.
The House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committees have until February 8 to decide which of the Governor's budget recommendations to accept and which to reject. In addition, they could make their own proposals for changes that could help or hurt local governments.
Final agreement on the budget by the two bodies is not usually reached before the last day or two of Session, and sometimes later.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1. Recommended Positions on Bills of Importance to the City, January 24, 2015
Attachment 2. Current Status of City Package Bills, January 24, 2015
STAFF: Bernard Caton, Legislative Director