Department of Education; development of guidelines and information relating to virtual or online learning; public health emergencies. Provides for the Department of Education to develop and post on its official website guidelines and information relating to virtual or online learning. Such guidelines and information shall include (i) statewide policies relating to virtual learning, (ii) the availability of online or virtual learning options and pertinent information on such options, and (iii) guidelines for educators and schools relating to online or virtual learning policies and best practices. In addition, the bill requires each K-12 school in the Commonwealth to include as a component of its annual safety audit a review of the school's plan for school closures due to public health emergencies. This bill is a recommendation of the Joint Subcommittee to Study Pandemic Response and Preparedness in the Commonwealth.
Department of Health; Maternal Health Monitoring Pilot Program; pregnancy mobile application; report. Directs the Department of Health to contract with a mobile application developer to create a membership-based mobile application to deliver education, resources, and support to prenatal, pregnant, and postpartum individuals who are eligible for Medicaid. The bill also creates the Maternal Health Monitoring Pilot Program to offer remote patient monitoring for maternal hypertension and maternal diabetes. The Department shall select a managed care organization and technology vendor to administer the Pilot Program to no less than 300 eligible participants. The bill requires the Department to submit requests for proposals within 180 days of the bill's effective date.
Supervision of certified registered nurse anesthetists; work group; report. Clarifies that supervision of a certified registered nurse anesthetist requires that a licensed doctor of medicine, osteopathy, podiatry, or dentistry is present during an operation or procedure or is immediately available to respond and provide patient care as needed. The bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Resources, in collaboration with the Board of Medicine, Board of Nursing, and Department of Health Professions, to convene a work group of relevant stakeholders to evaluate and make recommendations to increase the anesthesia provider workforce in the Commonwealth. The bill requires the work group to report its recommendations to the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Education and Health and the House Committee on Health and Human Services by November 1, 2025.
Hospitals, freestanding emergency departments, and birthing centers; standardized protocols for obstetric emergencies. Requires all hospitals with an emergency department for labor and delivery, freestanding emergency departments, and birthing centers to implement standardized protocols for identifying and responding to obstetric emergencies, including obstetric hemorrhage, preeclampsia, and eclampsia. The bill requires the Virginia Neonatal Perinatal Collaborative to work collaboratively with these hospitals, departments, and centers to provide training related to obstetrical services, recognizing urgent maternal warning signs, and establishing protocols for transfer of any pregnant or recently delivered women who present for care and for such hospitals, departments, and centers to participate in and submit data with no protected health information or identifiers to the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health Patient Safety Bundle.
Department of Health; waterworks; mandatory reporting of anomalies; negligence. Requires owners of waterworks to report any operational anomaly that could affect water quality, public health, or service continuity to the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water (the Office) within 24 hours of discovery. The bill requires any critical equipment failure, including a pump failure or any other malfunction that poses an immediate risk to public health or disrupts water service to be reported to the Office within six hours of discovery. Under the bill, failure to comply with the reporting requirements constitutes negligence and failure to comply with the critical equipment failure reporting requirements constitutes gross negligence.
Electric utilities; customer energy choice; customer return to service; subscription cap and queue. Removes certain restrictions on the ability of individual retail customers of electric energy within the Commonwealth, regardless of customer class, to purchase electric energy matched 100 percent by renewable energy certificates from any supplier of electric energy licensed to sell retail electric energy within the Commonwealth. The bill requires a licensed supplier to match a percentage of each retail electric customer's annual load with renewable energy certificates from within the PJM transmission region. The bill decreases from five years to six months the required written notice period for certain electric energy customers to return to service by an incumbent electric utility after purchasing electric energy from other suppliers. The bill also directs the Commission, by October 1, 2026, to establish a subscription cap allowance for certain utility customers seeking to participate in purchasing electric energy from a licensed supplier. The Commission is required to review the subscription cap allowance every two years starting on January 1, 2028, and electric utilities are required to file their subscription queues with the Commission by January 15, 2027, and annually thereafter. The bill contains an exception to the subscription cap allowance for customers seeking to expand usage at an existing or new facility. The bill has a delayed effective date of July 1, 2026, unless the rules and regulations of the Commission promulgated pursuant to the bill specify a commencement date.
Department of Human Resource Management; direct experience recruitment policy. Requires the Department of Human Resource Management to develop a statewide direct experience recruitment policy designed to provide guidance to state agencies on how to remove postsecondary degree requirements from hiring considerations, defined in the bill. The bill prohibits state agencies from rejecting applicants for job positions solely on the basis of the applicant lacking a postsecondary degree unless the agency substantiates in the job posting and to the Department the necessity of including a postsecondary degree as a baseline requirement, defined in the bill. Finally, the bill requires each state agency to provide a detailed quarterly report to the Department regarding the baseline requirements of its job postings.
Common interest communities; termination of certain management contracts; transfer of association books and records. Provides that within a reasonable time after termination of a management contract and without additional cost to the association, a common interest community manager shall transfer and release all funds and close bank accounts maintained on behalf of an association.
Public utilities; rate increases during certain months prohibited. Prohibits the regulated operating revenues of certain public utilities from being increased in the months of November, December, January, or February. The bill's limitation does not apply to certain increases, which are the same exceptions as allowed for the existing prohibition on multiple rate increases during a 12-month period. This bill was incorporated into HB 2621.
Department of Education; mental health first aid training program. Directs the Department of Education, in consultation with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, to develop a mental health first aid training program consisting of an adult component and an adolescent and youth component. This bill is a recommendation of the Joint Subcommittee to Study Pandemic Response and Preparedness in the Commonwealth.
Office of New Americans Advisory Board; increase in membership. Increases from 18 to 21 the number of nonlegislative citizen members of the Office of New Americans Advisory Board and adds the Secretaries of Commerce and Trade, Education, Health and Human Resources, Labor, Public Safety and Homeland Security, and Transportation as ex officio members with nonvoting privileges. This bill was incorporated into HB 2279.
Photo speed monitoring devices; private vendors; calibration; civil penalty. Requires any private vendor that has entered into an agreement with a law-enforcement agency to provide a photo speed monitoring device and is also compensated for the calibration of such device to calibrate such device in the same manner and to the same specifications as all other devices determining speed, to the extent that such devices utilize the same method of speed detection as such photo speed monitoring device, used by such law-enforcement agency. The bill also (i) requires such a private vendor to provide, within 10 days of a request by a person receiving a summons by mail for a vehicle speed violation recorded by a photo speed monitoring device provided by such private vendor, for proof of calibration for such photo speed monitoring device; (ii) requires such a summons to provide notice of such right to request such proof of calibration; and (iii) imposes a civil penalty on any private vendor who fails to provide such proof of calibration within such time.
