This amendment also expands the duties of the task force to require that the task force examine the advantages and disadvantages of a comprehensive 4-year career and technical education high school, obstacles to implementation and other models of comprehensive 4-year career and technical education high schools around the State and on a national level. The task force is also required to examine increasing crosswalks and intersections between technical and occupational knowledge and curricula and academic standards in order to promote multiple pathways for awarding content area credit to students enrolled in career and technical education programs.

• 1. It reduces the minimum paper size for plans.
• 2. It requires that plans be submitted on white 20-pound paper.
• 3. It specifies that paper plans be rolled and not folded.
• 4. It authorizes the register of deeds to return plans that are not legible for recording and archival purposes and the processing of which may damage county equipment or resources.
• 5. It specifies the size of the block that the register uses to record certain information.
• 6. It changes the requirements for the handling of originals and copies by the register.
• 7. It requires each plan be microfilmed for archival purposes.
• 8. It eliminates the requirement for a register to establish standards for making copies of original plans.

• 1. It requires that the Department of Labor's outreach efforts regarding the program be tailored to focus on unemployed and underemployed workers, veterans, immigrants, recipients of benefits under the statewide food supplement program, low-skilled manufacturing workers and students enrolled in postsecondary education.
• 2. It directs the Department of Labor to collaborate with other entities to improve program outreach to target demographics, including, at a minimum, collaboration with the Maine Community College System.
• 3. It makes changes to the criteria used to determine approved education and training under the program, including consideration of employer input, changing demographics and traditional industries in the State in which innovations and new technologies are creating a demand for skilled workers.
• 4. It requires that a program participant be given information about the allowable uses of a family development account under the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 10, chapter 110, subchapter 4-A.
• 5. It adds a requirement that a participant be offered comprehensive career planning services prior to the program's development of an individual career plan with the participant and permits the Department of Labor to partner with other entities to provide this service. It directs the department to include in this partnership, at a minimum, the Maine Community College System with respect to participants enrolled or seeking enrollment in a training or education course provided by the Maine Community College System. It also directs the Maine Community College System to assist the Department of Labor in program management and oversight for such participants.
• 6. It repeals the January 1, 2020 repeal provision on the eligibility for the program of a full-time student at a public secondary school enrolled in a career and technical education program at a career and technical education center or a career and technical education region.

This bill also amends the laws governing the employment of minors 16 and 17 years of age, providing that such a minor may be employed in an otherwise hazardous occupation for which the minor has been trained or certified from a vocational, career and technical or cooperative education program approved by the Department of Education only if the minor has graduated from the program and has graduated from high school.

Amendment H-82
This amendment strikes a number of sections of the bill affecting the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program and does the following.

• 1. It retains the changes in the bill that amend the laws governing the employment of minors 16 and 17 years of age in an otherwise hazardous occupation for which the minor has been trained or certified from a vocational, career and technical or cooperative education program approved by the Department of Education to require that the minor must have graduated from high school. The amendment provides that a high school equivalency diploma or its equivalent is sufficient to meet this requirement.
• 2. It retains the provision in the bill that repeals the January 1, 2020 repeal provision on the eligibility for the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program of a full-time student at a public secondary school enrolled in a career and technical education program at a career and technical education center or a career and technical education region.
• 3. It amends the eligibility criteria of the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program to modify the requirement that an individual be at least 18 years old by also including an individual who has graduated from high school.

• 1. Specify that the use of the fund for Internet access includes mobile Internet access through a portable wireless access point, or hotspot, that provides Internet access over a cellular network; and
• 2. Add a guideline for allocation of money from the fund to provide, within existing resources, support for qualified libraries in rural areas of the State with greatest need, as determined in consultation with the State Librarian, the Commissioner of Education and the ConnectME Authority, to offer portable wireless access points, or hotspots, for mobile Internet access.

• 1. It requires a public school that provides free and reduced-price meals or other meals to students pursuant to the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 20-A, chapter 223, subchapter 7 or otherwise provides to students meals eligible for reimbursement under a program administered by the United States Department of Agriculture to provide such a meal to a student who requests the meal and is otherwise eligible for the meal regardless of the student's inability to pay for the school meal or failure in the past to pay for school meals. It also requires the school to take certain actions to assist the parent or guardian of a student who requests such a meal.
• 2. It prohibits a public school from punishing a student in certain ways solely because of the student's inability to pay for a meal or because of any payments due for previous meals. It also prohibits a public school from refusing a meal to a student as a form of or as part of a disciplinary action.
• 3. It prohibits a public school from openly identifying or stigmatizing a student who cannot pay for a meal or who has payments due for previous meals by requiring the student to wear a wristband, hand stamp or other identifying mark or sign noticeable by others.
• 4. It requires a public school to communicate about a student's meal debts directly to the parent or guardian of the student rather than to the student. A public school may ask a student to carry to the student's parent or guardian a letter regarding a student's meal debt.

• 1. It strikes the requirement that a school take certain actions to assist the parent or guardian of a student who requests a meal.
• 2. It retains the prohibition that a public school may not openly identify or stigmatize a student who cannot pay for a meal or who has payments due for previous meals but strikes specific examples of ways students could be stigmatized.
• 3. It provides that a public school's communication about a student's meal must be made to the parent or guardian of the student rather than to the student directly except that, if the student inquires about the student's meal debt, the school may answer the student's inquiry.
• 4. It requires the Department of Education to develop guidance for school administrative units relating to the collection of student meal debt, including, but not limited to, best practices and information on how to create an online system for the payment of student meal debt. The amendment requires the department to post this information on its publicly accessible website.
• 5. It adds a mandate preamble.

This bill proposes to move the Bureau of Parks and Lands from the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

The law also places specific notice requirements regarding the foreclosure process on the State Tax Assessor and municipalities and provides for continuous eligibility under the Maine resident homestead property tax exemption for a person who loses ownership of a homestead to tax lien foreclosure and subsequently regains ownership of the homestead; these provisions are also removed by this bill.

• 1. It adds 4 provisions to the laws regarding nontraditional limited purpose schools that were part of Department of Education rule Chapter 250 which has been repealed.
• 2. It adds response to intervention systems to the minimum requirements for basic school approval to ensure an all-encompassing, tiered system of support for general and special education students. It also clarifies that rules regarding those requirements are major substantive rules.
• 3. It facilitates collaboration between general education and special education, including a clarification that the Department of Education is required to facilitate a process to help schools apply for schoolwide status with respect to federal Title I funds.
• 4. It promotes dual certification programs by the Department of Education and the State Board of Education.
• 5. It requires recodification of the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 20-A, Part 4, subpart 1, concerning special education, by the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis and the Office of the Revisor of Statutes.
• 6. It requires a review of the purpose of the maintenance of effort funding component of the essential programs and services funding formula and whether it is accomplishing this purpose and how to increase equity among all school administrative units.
• 7. It requires a review and improvement of MaineCare billing systems and procedures through a pilot program through the Department of Education in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services.

• 1. Enhancement of response to intervention to become an all-encompassing multitiered system of support in all school administrative units and removing the regulations on general education interventions from Department of Education rule Chapter 101: Maine Unified Special Education Regulation Birth to Age Twenty and amending rule Chapter 125: Basic Approval Standards: Public Schools and School Administrative Units to include regulations on general education interventions;
• 2. Facilitation of the process by which schools apply for schoolwide status with respect to funds under Title I of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;
• 3. Increased use of dual certification programs for general education and special education certifications;
• 4. Review of the maintenance of effort funding component of the essential programs and services funding formula; and
• 5. Improvement of regional programs that facilitate MaineCare billing for medically necessary services for schools.

• 1. Engage in statewide hunger relief services, including, but not limited to, the purchase of food from Maine food producers and processors;
• 2. Provide grants to local hunger relief programs; and
• 3. Pay its operational and distribution expenses.

• 1. It allows a retired state employee or retired teacher to be restored to service as a classroom-based employee or school administrator beyond the current 5-year limit.
• 2. It removes the cap of 75% of compensation established for the position that the retired state employee or retired teacher is filling.
• 3. It allows a retired state employee or retired teacher who returns to service as a classroom-based employee or school administrator to receive full retirement, health, dental and life insurance benefits as offered for the position to be filled and suspends the provisions of retiree health, dental and life insurance benefits for retired state employees or retired teachers during the period of reemployment.
• 4. It retains the current provisions that a retired state employee or retired teacher who returns to service is not a member and therefore may not accrue additional creditable service or change the retired state employee's or retired teacher's earnable compensation for benefit calculation purposes.
• 5. It requires full employee and employer contributions to the retirement system for the unfunded liability and the state group health plan for retiree health care based upon the retired state employee's or retired teacher's compensation.

• 1. It removes the 5-year limit on a retired state employee or retired teacher to be restored to service.
• 2. It removes the cap of 75% of compensation established for the position that the retired state employee or retired teacher is filling.
• 3. It allows a retired state employee, retired teacher or retired school administrator who returns to service to receive retirement, health, dental and life insurance benefits as negotiated by the retired state employee, retired teacher or retired school administrator or as required under collective bargaining agreements.
• 4. It requires that the portions of the employer and employee contributions that go to pay the retirement system for the unfunded liability and the state group health plan for health care must be continued at the same contribution rate of the employer and employee as is required for the position as if the position were filled by an employee who is not a retired state employee, retired teacher or retired school administrator. A retired state employee, retired teacher or retired school administrator who returns to service is not a member and therefore may not accrue additional creditable service during the reemployment period or change the retired state employee's, retired teacher's or retired school administrator's earnable compensation for benefit calculation purposes.

• 1. It provides immunity from liability to health care practitioners who voluntarily provide health care services through telehealth in the same manner as immunity is provided to health care practitioners who voluntarily provide health care services in person.
• 2. It requires carriers that offer health plans in this State to provide coverage for health care services provided through telehealth services in the same manner as coverage is provided for services provided in person and sets forth certain standards for coverage of telehealth services.
• 3. It clarifies that carriers may apply prior approval and credentialing requirements for providers for services provided through telehealth services only if the requirements are the same as are applied for services provided in person.
• 4. It makes the bill's provisions apply to health insurance policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2020.

• 1. It strikes the references in the bill to "enrollee originating site" and "provider distant site" and removes those definitions.
• 2. It requires that a clinical evaluation be required before a provider may write a covered prescription through telehealth. The bill requires a physical exam.
• 3. It removes the prohibition for coverage of prescribed schedule I, II or III controlled substances.
• 4. It clarifies the telemonitoring requirements and provides that telephonic services are covered when scheduled telehealth services are technologically unavailable at the time of the scheduled telehealth service for an existing enrollee.
• 5. It removes the exclusions section of the bill.
• 6. It adds language exempting the bill from the provisions of the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 24-A, section 2752.

• 1. It changes the reimbursement for acute care critical access hospitals to 100% for all hospital-based physician costs rather than facility and physician costs.
• 2. It clarifies that rural health clinics are paid under an alternative payment methodology option that is the same as the current system except for rebasing costs to 2016 and 2017 costs as long as the rural health clinics are not paid less than the current reimbursement rate.
• 3. It requires the Department of Health and Human Services to submit any necessary state plan amendments to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services no later than January 1, 2020. Rulemaking must be completed by the department within 180 days of receiving federal approval.
• 4. It adds language to clarify that taxpayers cannot claim a double benefit for educational opportunity tax credits.
• 5. It adds an appropriations and allocations section.

• 1. An auctioneer;
• 2. A dietetic technician;
• 3. A veterinary technician;
• 4. A pharmacy technician;
• 5. A basic emergency medical technician;
• 6. A well driller, geothermal heat exchange well driller, geothermal heat exchange well pump installer or pump installer;
• 7. An athletic trainer;
• 8. A cosmetologist, barber, limited barber, nail technician or aesthetician;
• 9. A massage therapist or massage practitioner; and
• 10. A limited interpreter, limited transliterator, limited deaf interpreter, certified interpreter, certified deaf interpreter or certified transliterator.

• 1. Expansion of educational programs at career and technical education centers and financial support of those programs;
• 2. Comprehensive scholarships for persons taking classes toward the attainment of an early childhood education credential or an associate or bachelor's degree that allow the persons to graduate without student debt as long as the persons agree to work for a year with an approved employer;
• 3. An increased number of apprenticeships; and
• 4. Salary supplements awarded to individuals who provide child care or who are early childhood educators. The amount of the supplement is based on the level of education and experience of the individual and other factors.