Latest news with #Bill571
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill expanding school misconduct investigations, Do-Not-Hire registry heads to governor
AUSTIN (KXAN) – In a 134-2 vote on Tuesday, the Texas House gave initial approval to a bill targeting what Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, called 'dangerous loopholes' in the state's misconduct registries. Senate Bill 571 is expected to head to the governor's desk soon. Sen. Bettencourt vowed to pass a bill during the 89th legislative session to expand access to the state's Do Not Hire registries and expand the Texas Education Agency's ability to investigate misconduct following a KXAN investigation. Our investigation found that a former juvenile corrections officer was able to get a tutoring job at an Austin Independent School District campus, despite the Texas Juvenile Justice Department's Office of Inspector General already determining he had an inappropriate relationship with a juvenile. The former corrections officer, Isaiah Xavier Smith, is now in jail in Lee County, facing multiple charges of Indecency with a Minor related to his employment at Giddings State School and his time tutoring on an Austin ISD campus. Austin ISD officials said non-profit Austin Partners in Education hired Smith and assigned him as a tutor to one of their campuses. The non-profit told KXAN that Smith did not disclose during the hiring process that he was previously employed by TJJD or the allegations he was facing within the agency. The sweeping 72-page bill allows the Texas Education Agency to compel school districts to report when volunteers, contractors or subcontractors are suspected of misconduct. The bill would also grant contractors, like Austin Partners in Education, access to the Interagency Reportable Conduct Search Engine. When complete, the search engine will include state misconduct information from several agencies, including TEA, TJJD, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, and Texas Health and Human Services. The database is not finished despite the legislature approving its creation in 2023. SB 571 also expands the list of convictions that would result in a mandatory termination and loss of certification to include felony offenses of public indecency or an improper relationship between an educator and a student. A bill analysis from the Senate Research Center explains that school employees, including third-party service providers, can be placed on TEA's Do Not Hire registry for inappropriate communications with students, failing to maintain appropriate boundaries with students, or physically mistreating or threatening violence to a student. The bill has received criticism over a confidentiality provision added to the bill that makes records related to the TEA or the State Board of Education Certification's review or investigation of a misconduct allegation confidential and not subject to disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Advocates for Black maternal health press NC General Assembly to approve ‘MOMnibus' legislation
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest maternal mortality report found that in 2023, Black women nationally were more than three times more likely than white women to die during or after childbirth. (FatCamera/Getty Images) On the week that North Carolina senators were busy rolling out a $32.6B spending plan, it was difficult to gain attention for legislation that some consider a longshot this session. But Senator Natalie Murdock (D-Chatham, Durham) refused to allow budget week to shift her focus from what she sees as the critical need to pass a bill crafted to improve Black maternal health outcomes. The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. And Black women in the U.S. are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related health problems than white women. Murdock has repeated those sobering facts for more than three years now, as she tries to get the Republican-controlled Senate to advance the MOMnibus 3.0 Act. Gabriel Scott, an MPA with the North Carolina Coalition of the National Council of Negro Women, joined Murdock last week in advocating for Senate Bill 571/House Bill 725. Scott said when she went into labor at 25 weeks, doctors were dismissive. 'I needed pain medication, I needed help, I needed something. They did not listen.' After she delivered her twins, complications with the placenta and an excessive loss of blood, left her husband terrified she might need a blood transfusion. 'They finally had an anesthesiologist come to give me medication. My husband said, can you at least tell me what the medication is? And the anesthesiologist laughed and said, 'Oh, this is typically medicine we give to war vets who have had limbs blown off,'' Scott recounted. 'They took it as a joke. The doctor continued to shove his arm in me.' Hours later in recovery, a white female doctor came to her room acknowledging the difficulty of the delivery. 'And she said, there are things that we know we do well at the hospital and then there are things that we know we don't do well, and one of those things is our treatment of African-American women and childbirth.' The same doctor suggested both she and her husband might seek mental health help. Scott gives thanks to God that her twin girls are healthy. But she's been dealing with pelvic pain for over four years and the trauma of doctors who didn't listen to her. Dr. Charity Watkins, an assistant professor of social work at North Carolina Central University and a maternal health researcher at Duke University, shared her own terrifying story of pregnancy-related heart failure. 'I always feel it is important for me to introduce myself using my professional roles. Maybe my doctoral degree will save me from the daily mistreatment I experienced because of my dark complexion. Maybe leaning into the perceived prestige of being a professor will protect me from poor perceptions and negative stereotypes associated with being a Black woman,' Watkins told a room of reporters on Wednesday. After her pregnancy, Watkins presented with classic heart failure symptoms, a family history of heart disease, and a recent cesarean delivery followed by hemorrhaging. She was told by a doctor that maybe it was the flu. 'What could have led to me receiving quality health care without having to prove I'm worthy of being treated as a human being?' Watkins believes the MOMnibus 3.0 Act would have changed her birth story, with doctors who would not have dismissed her as being over-dramatic or 'just another Black woman exaggerating her pain levels.' The legislation would direct the NC Department of Health and Human Services to establish and operate a maternal mortality prevention grant initiative that would establish or expand programs for the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity among Black women. 'It's time for us to provide Black mothers with more confidence in their care before, during, and after childbirth,' said Watkins. The legislation would also require NCDHHS, in collaboration with community-based organizations led by Black women and a historically Black college and universities (HBCUs) that primarily serves minority populations to create evidence-based implicit bias training program for health care professionals. Patients receiving care at a perinatal care facility would also receive a list of their rights including being informed of continuing health care requirements following discharge. The bill would also earmark $3 million for each year of the 2025-27 biennium for the UNC Board of Governors for recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse workforce of lactation consultants in North Carolina. Reps. Zack Hawkins (D-Durham) and Julie von Haefen (D-Wake) are advocating for HB 725, the companion bill in the state House. Hawkins said his two sisters and his wife had their own stories in which doctors were not 'listening appropriately' to their pain, and the fact that they knew their own bodies. Von Haefen said while it may not seem like her place to speak on Black health, she also knew she could not turn away. 'This should not be something that's put solely on Black women. White women need to be allies in this fight, because we are all mothers.' In North Carolina Black women are 1.8 times more likely to die from childbirth, two-thirds of these deaths are preventable, according to Murdock.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Record number of housing bills introduced this session, but little to show for it, advocate says
Workers paint a new apartment complex near Old Town Albuquerque in December 2022. The most housing-related legislation in years was introduced in the recent 60-day session, but there is little to show for it, according to an advocate who paid close attention. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM) At the beginning of the 60-day legislative session, housing advocate Winter Torres remembers feeling like the issue of housing affordability and homelessness had reached such a crescendo that lawmakers were jumping over each other to introduce bills. By the session's midpoint, housing advocates watching the session closely said they were tracking more than 60 bills, a huge increase over previous years. Lawmakers introduced nearly 200 bills mentioning the word 'housing' this session. That's the most since at least 2005. 'There's never been bills like this,' said Torres, who runs an eviction diversion program in Santa Fe and also tracks housing-related legislation on her website during the session. 'People just came out of the woodwork with them.' But now that the session is over, Torres said she can't help but feel like the Legislature missed a chance to catch up to other states' efforts to reform housing policies and address the crisis here before it gets worse. The state lacks more than 32,000 housing units, homelessness is on the rise and federal cuts threaten to deprive housing aid to thousands of New Mexicans. 'I feel disappointed,' she said. 'Some of the other advocates may have a different view, but I feel like, you know, we had our shot.' Legislative leaders have touted this year's session as building on recent record investments in making housing more affordable and building more of it. Lawmakers last year appropriated nearly $200 million for various housing projects and programs. This year, lawmakers have earmarked at least $140 million for housing programs, including up to $80 million of that for Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. Outside of the budget, both chambers of the Legislature also passed 21 bills mentioning 'housing,' including Senate Bill 267, which caps late and application fees for renters, and House Bill 571, which creates incentives for municipalities that reform their zoning codes in ways that expands the construction of affordable housing. Another bill creates a new governing subdivision to oversee the New Mexico State Fair grounds and empowers it to study the feasibility of building new housing there. Torres said she doesn't want to minimize those significant bills, but the way other bills were moving early on in the session made their eventual deaths more frustrating. For example, a House bill that would have prohibited landlords from turning away tenants who carry Section 8 vouchers failed early in committees in at least the last two previous sessions, but this year made it all the way to its final Senate committee, Senate Judiciary, where it never received a hearing. Other House bills she tracked also died in Senate Judiciary, their final hurdle before the Senate floor, including ones that would have expunged old eviction records or given mobile home park tenants a chance to buy their park if it goes up for sale. New Mexico governor once again tries to create Office of Housing 'Fundamentally, I think the way we do sessions is an extremely irresponsible way to make law, when we are so far behind the rest of the nation on so many things, and the rest of the world just keeps speeding up,' she said. 'We'll never catch up.' Rep. Kathleen Cates (D-Rio Rancho) sponsored several housing bills and joined a working group with other lawmakers to discuss and propose housing-related legislation. She said the Legislature was abuzz with housing-related energy at the beginning and is proud to have supported another year of significant investments in housing and homelessness. Still, Cates also said significant legislation she supported languished without hearings, primarily in Senate Judiciary 'That's where everything dies, Senate Judiciary,' she said. 'It's ridiculous.' Sen. Joseph Cervantes, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, did not respond to a request for comment on Friday afternoon from Source New Mexico. Other prominent housing-related bills that died this session include one that would have created a new Office of Housing, Planning and Production in the executive branch. Advocates say the office is necessary to collect better data and coordinate various government agencies into a unified statewide strategy. That bill also made it to its final committee hurdle, Senate Finance, without being heard. 'Our priority bill SB205…had amazing support, compelling testimony, and endorsements from diverse organizations around the state. We won bipartisan support in four committee hearings and passed the House 49-17,' Daniel Werwath, housing policy adviser to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, wrote in an email to supporters on the last day of the session. 'Sadly, in the last few days of the session, the Senate Finance Committee chose not to hear our bill and denied us a vote on the Senate floor.' Werwath declined an interview request with Source New Mexico until after the governor decides which bills to sign, but his same email pointed to the money in the budget for housing and also HB571 as reason to call the session a success. 'While we failed to win statutory authority for the Office, this doesn't change our work,' Werwath wrote. 'With record funding and mandates to work on statewide housing regulatory frameworks through HB571 …we will continue to work to ensure that state investments in housing are delivered quickly, efficiently and with a focus on innovation and outcomes.'
