Three pieces of legislation were reported to the full Senate by the Health and Human Resources Committee, 1 p.m. Thursday.
Of the proposed bills, two were from the Senate and two were from the House of Delegates.
Review of Senate Bill 86, a bill which would require county boards to provide free feminine hygiene products to female students, opened discussion between committee members. Council led members in reviewing a committee substitute of the proposed legislation which calls for county boards to supply feminine hygiene products to girls in grades 6 through 12. The introduced bill called for counties to provide free products to all girls in the selected grades range but was altered to only supply products to students with financial need.
According to council, the legislation was created following representatives in Monongalia county noticing that an inability to purchase feminine hygiene products directly effected the attendance of female students in grades 6 through 12.
Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, expressed concern over the bill’s potential impact on county school boards following implementation. Currently, the bill has no fiscal note because it would require county school boards to cover the total cost of the program.
Rucker stated that although she supported the bill, she didn’t like that it’s an unfunded mandate for a program which some schools may already have in place.
Committee chair, Sen. Michael Maroney, R-Marshall, addressed Rucker and explained that although the bill has a unfunded mandate, the Senate Finance chair and multiple country boards were contacted during the drafting of the legislation and said they were okay with county school boards covering the costs.
Members voted to agree to the committee substitute and report the bill to the full Senate with the recommendation that it shall pass.
Senate Bill 300, relating to adoption records, also came before the committee and sparked debate. According to council, the proposed legislation would require multiple health records to be completed and uploaded online prior to the adoption of a child.
Gary Thompson, director of the Health Statistics Center at the Department of Heath and Human Resources, came before members to discuss the objectives of the legislation, and stated that although the service would be voluntary, he expected that 2,000 cases would be reported online within the first year.
Thompson also explained that two jobs would be added to the DHHR in order to keep up with the projected high volume of cases within the first few years.
Following discussion, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, moved to add a conceptional amendment which would require the DHHR to report the total volume of cases to the state every three years. The Senator attributed the amendment to a fear that too many positions would be present in the DHHR following passage of the bill.
Overall, members moved to incorporate the amendment into a committee substitute which has been reported to the full Senate.
House Bill 2607 was also reported while House Bill 2490 was laid over.
