Here are some of the more significant bills to be heard today, by the Rhode Island General Assembly in its annual post-budget scramble.  Some committees calendars were updated as late as noon today…

• H5047: “Six hours of over-the-road driver’s training from a licensed driver’s training school” required for a first-time driver to obtain a license. (H Corporations)

• H6039: Changes the amortization period for Woonsocket’s pension liability from 5 to 25 years. (H Finance)

• H5465/S0662: Repeals the section of the law creating a workers’ compensation investigations unit within the state police. (H Finance) Both House and Senate versions of this bill are being considered. Why would someone actually want to go out of their way to take credit for this?

• S0486: Knocks out a section of the law that says compensation for traffic tribunal magistrates “shall be determined by the chief magistrate of the traffic tribunal subject to appropriation by the general assembly”. And replaces it with nothing. (H Finance)

• H5303: Mandates state use of “data verification and provider screening technology solutions” and “state-of-the-art predictive modeling and analytics technologies in a pre-payment position within the healthcare claim workflow” to reduce Medicaid, RIte Care and RIte Share fraud and waste. (H Finance)

• S0026: Subjects Bryant University to local property taxes. (H Finance)

• S0642: Changes an annual $300,000 cap on payments to the Dept. of Environmental Management from a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative auctions proceeds to a $300,000 annual minimum. (H Finance)

• H5738/S0825: Allows the work requirement for cash welfare assistance to be fulfilled by two parents together working a total of 35 hours, instead of one parent having to work 35 hours for him/herself. (H Finance)

• H6019/S0900: Allows communities to declare themselves “PACE municipalities”, which would “dwelling owners to finance qualifying energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements through placing a voluntary assessment on a property tax bill”. (H Finance)

• H6082: Complete repeal of the ”Rhode Island Refunding Bond Authority Act”. (H Finance)

• H5981: Allows city housing authorities to obtain information on “unemployment compensation, child support, alimony, supplemental nutritional assistance and public welfare payments…for the purpose of determining the current income of any applicant regarding rental calculations”. (H Finance)

• H5889: Allows temporary disability to be used for “caring for a newborn child or a child newly placed for adoption or foster care with the employee or domestic partner; or caring for a child, a parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, spouse, or domestic partner, who has a serious health condition”. (H Finance)

• S0402/H5033: Establishes a program where employers can offer a prospective new hire 6 weeks of 24 hour-per-week training before putting them on the payroll, and the prospective employee won’t lose unemployment benefits during this training period. (H Finance)

• H6310: Very recently submitted bill, creating a different section of the law for post-state intervention fiscal advisors in communities that don’t go all the way to bankruptcy, versus communities that do go officially bankrupt. Also, this bill changes the law so than in either situation, the state and the municipality split the cost of the post-intervention advisor 50/50. (H Finance)

• H5205/S0041: Extends the current requirement that persons convicted of sexual and violent offenses provide DNA to be logged in a database, to a requirement that persons arrested for certain violent crimes or convicted of any felony do so. (H Judiciary)

• H6262: “State police, local police departments, and registry of motor vehicle enforcement personnel, upon observation of foreign (i.e, out-of-state) registered vehicle present within the state for thirty (30) days or more shall identify the owner of the vehicle and, if a Rhode Island resident, provide a notice containing a copy of this section to the owner, and to the tax assessor in the city or town in which the vehicle is located”. (H Judiciary)

• H5140/S0352: Repeals the June 30, 2013 sunset on the law that makes driving without wearing a seat belt a primary motor vehicle offense. (H Judiciary)

• H5060: If the office of Lieutenant Governor becomes vacant, it is to be filled by “the general assembly in grand committee”. (H Judiciary)

• S0214: “Any state or local agency must demonstrate extreme need and the lack of any viable alternative before exercising a right of eminent domain over any land which is protected with a conservation restriction or preservation restriction”. (H Judiciary) But it would be kind of nice if this were applied to any eminent domain taking

• H5946: Unionizes Rhode Island child-care workers, and provides them with the same arbitration and mediation options as state employees. (H Labor)

• H5507: Prohibits employers from “from inquiring whether [a job applicant] has ever been convicted of any crime”, but allows an employer to “ask an applicant for information about his or her criminal convictions at the first interview or thereafter”. (H Labor)

• H6295: Special exemption for the Providence Redevelopment Agency requiring that its permits for “new buildings for commercial or industrial uses contemplated by its redevelopment plan” be automatically granted. (H Municipal Government)

• S0958: Consolidation of Cumberland’s fire districts. (H Municipal Government)

• H6167: Prohibits local zoning boards from requesting “additional information and documents other than those specifically enumerated in the local regulations for the associated stage of the project”. (H Municipal Government)

Local Impact: Burrilliville 2 3, Cranston, New Shoreham, Pawtucket 2, Portsmouth, Richmond 2 3, Tiverton 2, Warren 2, Woonsocket 2 3.