29. H5132: Families qualified to receive child-care subsidies because their incomes were less than 180% of the Federal poverty level would continue to receive the subsidy if their incomes rose to 225% of the poverty level “provided that the family requires child care in order to work at paid employment”. H5409 and H5473 would allow various education and/or training programs to be counted towards subsidized child-care qualifications. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 10)
28. H5554: Appropriates $3,250,000 “out of a dedicated funding stream of money in the treasury appropriated for the fiscal year 2013-2014” for homeless rental assisstance and winter shelter operations programs (even though the FY2014 budget is yet to be approved). (H Finance; Wed, Apr 10)
27. S0459: Mandates that “a health care provider providing treatment to a patient in a hospital” inform “appropriate law enforcement personnel” if “such disclosure appears necessary to alert law enforcement to the commission and nature of a crime, the location of such crime or the victim(s) of such crime; or the identity, description, location of the perpetrator of such crime”. (S Judiciary; Thu, Apr 11)
26. S0756: Reduces the health-insurance utilization review period of time from 72 hours to 24 hours in the case of urgeny/emergency services, and from 15 days to 48 hours in the case of non-urgent/non-emergency services. (S Health and Human Services; Thu, Apr 11)
25C. S0552: “There shall be established within the department of attorney general a public corruption and white collar crime unit”. Introduced at the request of the Attorney General. (S Judiciary; Thu, Apr 11)
25B. S0556: Creates a new section of criminal law that defines crimes against the public trust. Introduced at the request of the Attorney General. (S Judiciary; Thu, Apr 11)
25A. H5465: Repeals the section of the law creating a workers’ compensation investigations unit within the state police. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 11) Does one of the items in set 25 seem out of place with the others?
24. S0501: Joins Rhode Island to something called the “International emergency management assistance compact”. Two interestion sections of this compact are Article IV, which reads “Any party jurisdiction requested to render mutual aid or conduct exercises and training for mutual aid shall undertake to respond as soon as possible, except that it is understood that the jurisdiction rendering aid may withhold or recall resources to the extent necessary to provide reasonable protection for that jurisdiction” and Article III section (a)(7) of which requires member jurisdictions to “provide, to the extent authorized by law, for temporary suspension of any statutes or ordinances, over which the province or state has jurisdiction, that impede the implementation of the responsibilities described in this subsection”. (S Special Legislation and Veterans Affairs; Wed, Apr 10)
23. H5410: The official description says this bill “eliminates the two-tiered time limit”, i.e. creates a single time-limit, for direct welfare cash-assistance. Among other changes, a time limit of 24 months for certain programs is replaced with a time limit of 48 months. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 10)
22. H5689: Assesses a 15% penalty on unemployment payments received because of fraud. Submitted at the request of the Governor (H Judiciary; Wed, Apr 10)
21. S0026: Bryant University gets until July 1, 2014 to agree to a payment-in-lieu of taxes deal with Smithfield, or else it has to begin paying full property taxes on its campus. (S Finance; Tue, Apr 9)
20. H5413: Reduces the gasoline tax from 32 cents per gallon to 27 cents per gallon. (H Finance; Thu, Apr 11)