Group Violence Intervention Board; Divisionof Group Violence Intervention; Project Ceasefire Grant Fund; ProjectExit Grant Fund; report. Establishes the Group Violence InterventionBoard to coordinate and assist federal, state, and local group violenceintervention efforts. The bill also establishes within the Departmentof Criminal Justice Services (the Department) the Division of GroupViolence Intervention (the Division), to be headed by an executivedirector appointed by the Director of the Department. The bill providesthat the Division is responsible for (i) coordinating the effortsof members of state and local law enforcement, community members,and social services providers to combat group violence; (ii) servingas a clearinghouse for research, best practices, and strategies thatmay be utilized in the implementation, execution, and evaluationof group violence interventions; and (iii) implementing and administeringvarious federal, state, and local grant funds that aid group violenceintervention efforts. Finally, the bill creates the Project CeasefireGrant Fund, which provides money to organizations that are involvedin group violence intervention efforts, and creates the Project ExitGrant Fund, which provides money to organizations that assist formergang members or individuals attempting to leave gangs.
Sponsored bills
State Board of Elections; membership; appointment of Commissioner of Elections. Exempts the Department of Elections from provisions allowing the Governor to appoint a chief deputy and a confidential assistant for policy or administration. The bill expands the membership of the State Board of Elections (the State Board) from five members to eight members with equal representation given to both parties. The bill requires the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia to designate a retired circuit court judge to serve as the tie breaker for the State Board. The bill also gives the State Board the authority and duty to appoint the Commissioner of Elections of the Department of Elections and requires an affirmative vote of five of the State Board's eight members for the appointment and removal of the Commissioner of Elections. In the event that a vacancy occurs in the office of the Commissioner of Elections, the bill provides that the Director of Operations of the Department of Elections will serve as the head of the agency until such vacancy is filled by the State Board. The bill has a delayed effective date of January 1, 2023.
Elections; campaign finance; disclosure reports;searchable electronic database. Requires the Department of Electionsto provide an interface to the campaign finance database maintainedby the Department that allows users to easily search for and sortinformation by individual candidates and types of elections, offices,committees, and donors; donations, expenditures, loans, and othercategories of information included in campaign finance reports; andlate filings, incomplete filings, and other violations. The interfaceshall also provide users tools for manipulating and exporting data.The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2023.
College partnership laboratory schools; application and establishment. Permits any public institution of higher education or private institution of higher education to apply to the Board of Education (the Board) to establish a college partnership laboratory school as a new school or through the conversion of all or part of an existing school. Under current law, only public and private institutions of higher education that operate approved teacher education programs are permitted to apply to the Board to establish such a school and no explicit provision is made for the conversion of an existing school. The bill permits college partnership laboratory schools to enter into a memorandum of understanding with any individual or entity to provide apprenticeships, career training, and curriculum support to carry out the provisions of law relating to such schools. The bill requires the Board, in reviewing such applications, to give substantial preference to any application from a historically black college or university and any application to establish a college partnership laboratory school in an underserved community, which the bill defines as a geographical area that is served by public schools in which a high percentage of students are eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunch, as determined by the Board.
Elections. Applies the provisions of the Virginia Personnel Act to the chief deputy and confidential assistant for policy or administration for the Department of Elections. The bill also (i) expands the membership of the State Board of Elections from five members to six members with equal representation given to both parties; (ii) gives the State Board of Elections the authority and duty to appoint the Commissioner of Elections of the Department of Elections by a supermajority vote; (iii) requires the Department of Elections to conduct periodic assessments to ensure that voters are assigned to the correct state legislative and congressional districts based on their residential addresses; (iv) requires the State Registrar of Vital Records to transmit lists of deceased persons weekly instead of the current monthly requirement; (v) requires the general registrars to use information in the lists of deceased persons to promptly remove deceased persons from the voter registration system; (vi) requires voters to present a valid form of photo identification when they vote; (vii) provides that audits of ballot scanner machines must take place prior to the certification of election results; (viii) provides that absentee ballots must be collected daily from absentee ballot drop-off locations by certain people and according to procedures for securing such ballots; (ix) provides that a postmark on an absentee ballot must be legible and no longer includes other official indicia of confirmation of mailing by a postal or delivery service; and (x) creates work groups to evaluate the performance of the Virginia voter registration system and to develop and implement a plan to provide oversight to local election administration to assess risks to Virginia's administration of elections. Portions of the bill affecting the composition of the State Board of Elections and the appointment of the Commissioner of Elections have a delayed effective date of January 1, 2023.
Board of Education; Child Care Subsidy Program; Armed Forces; examination and report. Directs the Board of Education to determine the feasibility of amending its regulations to permit all active duty members of the Armed Forces of the United States who serve as caregivers to dependents to apply for the Child Care Subsidy Program and submit its findings to the House Committee on Education and the Senate Committee on Education and Health. This bill is identical to HB 994.
School safety audits; law-enforcement officers. Requires each local school board to require its schools to fullycollaborate with the chief law-enforcement officer of the localityor his designee when conducting required school safety audits. Undercurrent law, the division superintendent is required to make theresults of such audits available to the chief law-enforcement officerupon request, and his approval is not needed. The bill also requires that the completed walk-through checklist using the standardizedchecklist provided by the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safetybe made available to the chief law-enforcement officer of the localityor his designee. Current law requires that the completed walk-throughchecklist be made available to the chief law-enforcement officeror his designee upon request.
Real property taxes; notice of proposed increase. Adjusts the notice requirements for public hearings held to increase property taxes in localities that conduct their reassessment of real estate more than once every four years. The bill requires such localities to provide notice of any such hearing on a different day and in a different notice from any notice published for the annual budget hearing. Under current law, such hearings are required when a locality seeks to raise its property tax rate above a rate that would collect more than 101 percent of the amount of taxes collected for the previous year.
Commending the Virginia Cardinals Rugby FootballClub.
Celebrating the life of Adeline Rose Krizek.