Sen. Steve Newman

Makes numerous changes to the laws governing the provision of foster care services in the Commonwealth. Among other things, the bill (i) allows the Commissioner of Social Services to develop and implement a corrective action plan for or assume temporary control over the foster care services of a local board of social services upon determining that the local board (a) has failed to provide foster care services or make placement and removal decisions in accordance with applicable laws or regulations or (b) has taken any action that poses a substantial risk to the health, safety, or well-being of any child under its supervision and control; (ii) requires the Commissioner to create within the State Department of Social Services (the Department) a foster care health and safety director position; (iii) directs the Commissioner to establish and maintain a confidential hotline to receive reports and complaints from foster parents and other persons regarding violations of laws or regulations applicable to foster care and any other matters related to the health, safety, or well-being of children in foster care; (iv) directs the Department to develop and implement a more reliable, structured, and comprehensive case review and quality improvement process to monitor and improve foster care services provided by local boards and departments of social services; and (v) requires the Department to establish and update annually a caseload standard that limits the number of foster care cases that may be assigned to each foster care caseworker. The provisions of the bill are contingent on funding in a general appropriation act.

Requires the Department of Education, in consultation with representatives from pertinent industries such as renewable energy, natural gas, nuclear energy, coal, and oil, to establish an energy career cluster. The bill requires the Department of Education to base the knowledge and skill sets contained in such energy career cluster on the energy industry competency and credential models developed by the Center for Energy Workforce Development in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor. The bill further requires the Department of Education to report to the Chairmen of the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health no later than December 1, 2019, on its progress toward establishing such energy career cluster. This bill is identical to

Requires that if inspection, survey, or investigation data is used in an advertisement regarding nursing homes, the advertisement also include the following information: (i) the date on which the survey, inspection, or investigation was conducted; (ii) a statement that the facility is required to submit a plan of correction in response to any and all statements of deficiencies; (iii) if a finding or deficiency cited in a statement of deficiencies has been corrected, a statement that the finding or deficiency has been corrected and the date on which the finding or deficiency was corrected; and (iv) a statement that the advertisement publication is not authorized or endorsed by the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of the Inspector General, or any other governmental agency. The bill provides that failure to include this required information constitutes a violation of the Virginia Consumer Protection Act. The bill also requires that such information be in the same font, color, and size as the other text in the advertisement. This bill is identical to

Requires each school board to develop training on safety procedures in the event of an emergency situation on school property. The bill requires such training to be delivered to each student and employee in each school at least once each school year. This bill is identical to

Authorizes any electric cooperative to (i) if it does not hold a membership interest in a utility aggregation cooperative, petition the Commission for approval of one or more rate adjustment clauses for the timely and current recovery from customers of the costs of generation facilities, modifications to generation facilities, or pumped hydroelectricity generation and storage facilities; or (ii) adopt any other cooperative's voluntary rate, voluntary program, or voluntary tariff.

Requires the

Requires the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety to develop a case management tool for use by public elementary and secondary school threat assessment teams and requires such threat assessment teams to use such tool to collect and report to the Center quantitative data on its activities.