Unemployment changes clear first vote in Senate

The 42-6 vote on Senate Bill 15 came after a brief debate and is due to be confirmed with a second vote on Thursday.

Sen. Erica Smith-Ingram, D-Northampton, asked why the bill requires those receiving benefits to make five "job contacts" in the space of a week rather than just two contacts with two different employers under the old system. 

Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, said the change was deemed as fairer to unemployed workers. During a recent committee meeting on the bill, proponents pointed out that a job contact could be as simple as submitting an application via the Internet.

"I think it is overly burdensome," Smith-Ingram said, pointing out that many of the people she represents lack Internet access and live in counties without state-run re-employment centers. 

"You are kicking people while they are down. I don't know if that makes you feel good about yourselves or not," she said.

Rucho didn't respond. 

If the bill passes the Senate, it will go to the state House, and should it pass the General Assembly, Gov. Pat McCrory will weigh in.

Rucho pointed out in the introduction to the bill that certain changes staggering the terms of the Board of Review, an appeals panel that oversees unemployment claims, did not pass last year. That's because McCrory vetoed the measure.

After a recent Senate Finance Committee meeting on the bill, both McCrory legislative liaison Fred Steen and Dale Folwell, a deputy commerce secretary who oversees the Division of Employment Security, said that the McCrory administration likes several parts of the measure. However, the governor, they said, oppose the changes related to the Board of Review because it strips currently appointed officials from their existing terms. However, the administration does support several other parts of the bill, they said.

McCrory spokesman Josh Ellis hammered home that point again today.

"These proposed changes to the Board of Review are not only an example of legislative overreach; they also waste taxpayer dollars on an unaccountable and bloated bureaucracy," Ellis said.