NC General Assembly Allocates New COVID-19 Funding

Two bills have been signed into law that allocate federal COVID-19 funding and appropriate additional funding to address the pandemic in communities.  The most recent bill, SL 2021-3:  2021 COVID-19 Response and Relief was signed into law by the Governor on March 11^th.  Some of the provisions include:

• For the Community Mental Health Block Grant:
  • $47 million for mental health services in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • $2.1 million for the North Carolina Statewide Telepsychiatry Program (NC-STeP).
• $11.25 million for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant to provide services across the State to those in need due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• $2.2 billion in Emergency Rental Assistance
• $336 million for the Child Care and Development Block Grant funds to provide copayment assistance for families eligible for subsidized child care.
• Extends Medicaid temporarily increased reimbursement rates through June 30 (note that this does not include BH/IDD providers).   

Legislators have been spending time in appropriations subcommittees reviewing the budgets.  The Long Session is the time when a budget is considered for the biennium.  That would be the budget period for the next two State fiscal years, SFY21-22 (July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022) and SFY22-23 (July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023). 

Bills are being introduced and considered by committees.  Several bills related to juvenile justice and shoring up the Raise the Age of the juvenile jurisdiction have been working their way through the legislature (H. 132, H. 173, H. 183, H. 252/S. 207, H. 261).  There have also been bills introduced that were the recommendations of the Child Well-Being Transformation Council–related to coordination of children’s services across health and human services–as well as supporting families of children in foster care (S. 86, S. 89, S. 90, S. 93).  Finally, there are bills that impact types of professionals that can provide services (H. 277/S. 249, S. 103).