2011 Session Reznik Report Week 12

Hi. I'm Delegate Kirill Reznik. Welcome back to my weekly video blog updating you on what's happening here in Annapolis throughout the 2011 Legislative Session.

Last Monday was "cross-over day," which means that bills needed to pass out of the House or Senate by Monday to be able to have time to pass through the other chamber without any special procedures. Now that cross-over day has passed, we in the House are switching gears slightly and are now focusing most of our efforts on having hearings and voting on legislation that has already passed in the Maryland Senate.

In terms of the progress of the state's budget, this week, the Senate passed its version of the budget, and now a conference committee with representatives from both the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee has convened to hammer out any differences between the House and Senate's budgets to produce a final budget that both chambers will vote on.

I have received numerous e-mails from many of you concerned with education and teacher pension funding. As you know, I am and have always been an ardent advocate for our public school system. We take a lot of pride in the Maryland General Assembly that our school system has been consistently ranked as the best in the country, and that success is in no small part to our dedicated teachers. Many of the cuts of the original proposed budget have been restored by the House, and now the Conference Committee is negotiating through a number of proposals to try and provide a fair, but balanced, compromise to the budget. Our economic success, business development, and job growth come as a direct result of the investments we make in education, and no one wants to see that hurt.

I also wanted to take an opportunity to update you on what happened to the legislation that has been one of my top priorities over the last few years, legislation that would mandate health insurance companies to cover the cost of diagnosis and certain treatments of Autism in children. It appears that once again this legislation will not pass The legislature has serious reservations about adding any health insurance mandates as we wait for federal healthcare reform to be fully implemented. The potential costs and savings at this time are hard to predict with new mandates, however, I have been assured that once some of these questions are answered, the Maryland legislature will look at significant benefits to the autism community. It is unfortunate to say the least, as many of our family, friends, and neighbors continue to struggle to find ways to pay for these necessary medical treatments out of their own pockets. No matter what, I promise you that I will keep fighting and do all that is within my power to get help so many desperately need.

On a final note, many of you have contacted my office about supporting several pieces of legislation introduced this year to help deal with the problem of human trafficking in our state. I am happy to announce that we have passed three of these bills out of the House and they have now moved to the Senate where I am hopeful of their passage. House Bill 266 - Human Trafficking Victims Protection Act removes prostitution convictions for victims of human trafficking, if the convictions occurred during the time the person was a victim of human trafficking and gives some restitution to victims of trafficking from convicted traffickers. House Bill 674 will help educators and school employees to better recognize the signs of human trafficking. House Bill 1304 will require rest areas and truck stops in Maryland, key locations for sex trafficking crimes, to post the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline (888-3737-888) in bathrooms, so victims may access help and tipsters can report anything they find, confidentially, 24 hours a day. I look forward to these bill all reaching the Governor's desk for signing.

Thanks for tuning in this week. I look forward to updating you again next week. As always, don't hesitate to contact my office with any thoughts, questions, or concerns you may have about any issues facing our State or local community.

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