Health Care

State Health Plan approves flat premiums for 2024

The Treasury Department says it has saved $1.8 billion in the last five years in negotiating new contracts and cutting expenses.

House moves Blue Cross, credit union, PBM bills

With crossover looming just a week away, the scramble to get bills through at least one chamber of the General Assembly before the deadline well and truly began on Thursday.

Senate mulls antitrust exemption for UNC Health

Senators are weighing a rewrite of the basic governance rules for the UNC Health System that will give it an antitrust exemption and cuts anyone it hires after Nov. 1 out of the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System.

Budget & Taxes

Secretary of State Marshall asks General Assembly for more staff

Marshall said that her office has 185 employees to handle filings for new companies and other documents. She noted that there has been a "double-digit increase" in filings without any increase in staffing.

Raises are coming for state employees and teachers

Lawmakers are getting closer to a state budget that would provide for undetermined raises for state employees and teachers.

Working group to discuss NCInnovation funding

House Speaker Tim Moore says he’s assigned a work group in his chamber to work through the issues associated with the proposal to use state funds to bolster NCInnovation Inc.

Education

Pickett: App State's growth will come in Hickory

The former 230,000-square foot Corning building in Hickory is poised to be the key growth vehicle for App State in coming years.

Cooper: Investing in education helps NC be No. 1 in business

Cooper noted that North Carolina "has the best array of private and public universities in the country."

School calendar dispute still unresolved

Give local school districts more flexibility to start classes in early or mid-August?

Elections

Farley, Hardister are two candidates for labor commissioner

Raleigh lawyer Luke Farley and state Rep. Jon Hardister are two Republicans running to be the next labor commissioner for North Carolina.

Former state representative Brawley files to run for insurance commissioner

Brawley would face incumbent Mike Causey in the Republican primary

Rollback of some environmental regulations

H462 had caught my eye earlier in the session, as it calls for the rollback of some environmental regulations pertaining to aquaculture, which is the fancy way of saying fish farming. On first impression, it wasn’t obvious what the beef was all about (so to speak), but I presumed the answer would emerge in due course.