Early childhood care and education; licensing. Requires the Board of Education to establish a statewide unified public-private system for early childhood care and education in the Commonwealth to be administered by the Board of Education, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Department of Education. The bill transfers the authority to license and regulate child day programs and other early child care agencies from the Board of Social Services and Department of Social Services to the Board of Education and Department of Education. The bill maintains current licensure, background check, and other requirements of such programs. Such provisions of the bill have a delayed effective date of July 1, 2021. The bill requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish a plan for implementing the statewide unified early childhood care and education system and requires the Department of Social Services and the Department of Education to enter into a cooperative agreement to coordinate the transition. The bill also requires the Board of Education to establish, no later than July 1, 2021, a uniform quality rating and improvement system designed to provide parents and families with information about the quality and availability of certain publicly funded early childhood care and education providers and to publish the initial quality ratings under such system in the fall of 2023. This bill is identical to SB 578.
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Nonpayment of wages; private action; liability for payment of wages due under construction contracts; penalties. Provides that an employee has a private cause of action, individually, jointly, with other aggrieved employees as a collective action, on behalf of similarly situated employees as a collective action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act against an employer who fails to pay wages to recover the amount of wages due plus interest at eight percent annually from the date the wages were due, an additional amount as liquidated damages, and reasonable attorney fees and costs. If the court finds that the employer knowingly failed to pay wages, the court shall award the employee reasonable attorney fees and costs and the employer is subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000 for each violation. If the court finds that the employer's failure to pay wages was willful and with intent to defraud the employee, the court shall award the employee triple the amount of wages due and reasonable attorney fees and costs. The measure also provides that any construction contract entered into on or after July 1, 2020, shall be deemed to include a provision under which the general contractor and the subcontractor are jointly and severally liable to pay the wages due to the subcontractor's employees. If the wages due to the subcontractor's employees are not paid, the general contractor is subject to criminal and civil penalties for which an employer is liable for failing or refusing to pay wages. The measure requires the subcontractor to indemnify the general contractor for wages, damages, interest, penalties, or attorney fees owed as a result of the subcontractor's failure to pay the wages unless the subcontractor's failure to pay wages was because of the general contractor's failure to pay moneys due to the subcontractor. The measure also provides that the lack of privity between the general contractor and the employees of the subcontractor is not a defense in an action against the general contractor arising from nonpayment of wages to the subcontractor's employees. This bill incorporates HB 482.
Public institutions of higher education; eligibility for in-state tuition. Provides that any student is eligible for in-state tuition who (i) attended high school for at least two years in the Commonwealth and either (a) graduated on or after July 1, 2008, from a public or private high school or program of home instruction in the Commonwealth or (b) passed, on or after July 1, 2008, a high school equivalency examination approved by the Secretary of Education; (ii) has submitted evidence that he or, in the case of a dependent student, at least one parent, guardian, or person standing in loco parentis has filed, unless exempted by state law, Virginia income tax returns for at least two years prior to the date of registration or enrollment; and (iii) registers as an entering student or is enrolled in a public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth. The bill states that students who meet these criteria shall be eligible for in-state tuition regardless of their citizenship or immigration status, except students with currently valid visas issued under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(F), 1101(a)(15)(H)(iii), 1101(a)(15)(J) (including only students or trainees), or 1101(a)(15)(M). Information obtained in the implementation of the provisions of the bill shall only be used or disclosed to individuals other than the student for purposes of determining in-state tuition eligibility. This bill incorporates HB 1138 and is identical to SB 935.
Health insurance; nondiscrimination; gender identity or transgender status. Prohibits a health carrier from denying or limiting coverage or imposing additional cost sharing or other limitations or restrictions on coverage, under a health benefit plan for health care services that are ordinarily or exclusively available to covered individuals of one sex, to a transgender individual on the basis of the fact that the individual's sex assigned at birth, gender identity, or gender otherwise recorded is different from the one to which such health services are ordinarily or exclusively available. The measure also prohibits a health carrier from (i) subjecting an individual to discrimination under a health benefit plan on the basis of gender identity or being a transgender individual or (ii) requiring that an individual, as a condition of enrollment or continued enrollment under a health benefit plan, pay a premium that is greater than the premium for a similarly situated covered person enrolled in the plan on the basis of the covered person's gender identity or being a transgender individual. The measure requires health carriers to assess medical necessity according to nondiscriminatory criteria that are consistent with current medical standards.
Coal ash ponds; well monitoring program; drinking water well testing. Requires each utility, defined in the bill as the owner or operator of a coal ash pond, to commission an independent well water test on behalf of the owner of any well located within 1.5 miles of such coal ash pond by January 1, 2021, and requires such test to be conducted once per year during each of the five years following the approval of the closure of the coal ash pond and once every five years thereafter. The bill provides that if any test exceeds groundwater quality standards for constituents associated with coal ash, the Virginia Waste Management Board shall instruct the utility to provide alternative water supplies to the owner of the well. The bill requires the Department of Environmental Quality to consider the results of the tests in its permitting, monitoring, or enforcement proceedings.
Nuclear energy; strategic plan. Directs the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, the Secretary of Commerce and Trade, and the Secretary of Education to work in coordination with the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority to develop a strategic plan for the role of nuclear energy in the Commonwealth's overall strategy for moving toward renewable and carbon-free energy. The plan shall be completed by October 1, 2020, and updated every four years thereafter. This bill is identical to SB 549.
Worker cooperatives. Establishes worker cooperatives as a category of cooperative associations. A worker cooperative is a stock corporation that has elected to be governed by provisions established by this measure, which include (i) conducting its business primarily for the mutual benefit of its members, (ii) allowing only current and retired employees to be members, (iii) limiting voting rights to current employees, (iv) providing that each employee is entitled to one vote, (v) prohibiting any person from owning more than one membership share, (vi) requiring at least two-thirds of employees to own membership shares, and (vii) requiring that net earnings be paid or credited to members in accordance with the ratio that each member's amount of work performed during a period bears to the total amount of work performed by all members during that period.
Community solar development pilot program; low-income communities. Requires each incumbent electric utility to select for dedication to its community solar development pilot program one or more eligible generating facilities that are located within a low-income community as a condition for the utility's selection for dedication to its program any eligible generating facility that is located outside a low-income community. The bill requires the costs of the selected facilities in low-income communities to equal or exceed the costs of the eligible generating facility that is located outside a low-income community. These requirements apply to facilities selected on or after July 1, 2020. The bill defines a low-income community as a census tract that is designated in 2019 or thereafter as a qualified census tract for purposes of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Such census tracts are required to have 50 percent of households with incomes below 60 percent of the area median gross income or have a poverty rate of 25 percent or more.
Protected information; newspersons engaged in journalism. Provides that no newsperson engaged in journalism shall be compelled by the Commonwealth or a locality in any criminal proceeding to testify about, disclose, or produce protected information, as defined in the bill, except when the court finds that (i) the protected information is necessary to the proof of an issue material to an administrative or criminal proceeding; (ii) the protected information is not obtainable from any alternative source; (iii) the Commonwealth or locality exhausted all reasonable methods for obtaining the protected information from all relevant alternative sources, if applicable; and (iv) there is an overriding public interest in the disclosure of the protected information, including preventing harm to or death of a person. The bill further provides that any information obtained in violation of the provisions of the bill shall be inadmissible for any purpose in an administrative or criminal proceeding.
School boards; school meals; availability to students. Requires each school board to require each public elementary and secondary school in the local school division to participate in the federal National School Lunch Program and the federal School Breakfast Program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to make meals available pursuant to such programs to any student who requests such a meal, regardless of whether such student has the money to pay for the meal or owes money for meals previously provided, unless the student's parent has provided written permission to the school board to withhold such a meal from the student. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2021.