A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to establish the percentage of community‑based corrections funds that may be used to serve offenders released from jail prior to trial and to authorize the department of correction to establish and reimburse a community‑based rehabilitation program for up to five hundred offenders.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  G.S. 143B‑273.14(c) reads as rewritten:
"(c)	When a county receives more than fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) in community‑based corrections funds, then that county shall use at least fifty percent (50%) of those funds to develop programs for offenders who receive intermediate punishments. No county shall use more than twenty‑five percent (25%) of its funds to serve offenders released from jail prior to trial."
SECTION 2.  The Department of Correction may identify up to 500 offenders for participation in a community‑based program of rehabilitation that is consistent with the provisions of G.S. 148‑4(6) and with each offender's return to society. During the 2009‑2011 fiscal biennium, the Department may reimburse those programs of rehabilitation at the same rate it reimburses county jails for housing State prisoners under G.S. 148‑29.
The Department of Correction shall provide an interim report on these rehabilitation programs by March 1, 2010, and a final report by March 1, 2011, to the Chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Justice and Public Safety and the Joint Legislative Corrections, Crime Control, and Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee.
SECTION 3.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2009.