Weekly Wrap: Budget talks, quarantined state workers anti-NCAE billboard

When any budget might come up for a vote remains unclear, and lawmakers are moving little else in the meantime.

A measure reforming the bail bonds industry cleared the Senate Finance committee, and the House gave final approval to a bill to prohibit hospitals from barring patient visitors, which happened for the first several months of the pandemic.

But the House refused to go along with a Senate proposal to reform the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and also balked when the Senate dumped a plan to make more work histories of government employees available to the public into another bill.

Hundreds of state workers have burned through the 80 hours of special leave they were granted to deal with pandemic-related issues, mainly by having to sit out quarantines whenever they test positive for coronavirus or come in contact with someone else who did.

Finally, the conservative John Locke Foundation stepped up its battle against the North Carolina Association of Educators, posting billboards in Raleigh and other sites across the state telling teachers they could make an extra $500 by leaving the organization. The money is basically how much NCAE charges in annual dues.