Involuntary commitment reforms pass NC House + New parent advisory council

After a week off following Memorial Day, lawmakers were back in town this week.

While a budget has yet to emerge — with GOP leaders indicating they still expect to release one by mid- to late June — legislators held a flurry of committee meetings, overrode their first veto of 2026 and passed several pieces of legislation.

Also drawing attention this week were claims from Republican election officials in Jackson County that they were pressured by members of their own party and the state auditor’s office to reject an early voting site on a university campus. Democracy reporter Kyle Ingram has the details.

But a few noteworthy developments didn’t quite make it into a story.

I’m politics reporter Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi, with an assist from K-12 education reporter T. Keung Hui, here to give you a rundown of some other things of interest from this week for your Friday Under the Dome.

House passes bill aimed at breaking criminal justice system’s revolving door

The North Carolina House passed a bill seeking to make reforms to the state’s mental health and criminal justice systems. The bill follows the work of a 22-person committee created by Republican House Speaker Destin Hall to study the process of involuntary commitment — or a forced psychiatric hold — after the stabbing death of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte by a man who had cycled in and out of jail and had a history of mental health issues.

A co-chair of the study committee on involuntary commitment, Rep. Timothy Reeder, a Republican from Pitt County, said during a committee hearing on Tuesday that “this bill is not the fix of the entire behavioral health system. That has taken us 20 years to get where we are. We’re not going to fix it in the next couple months.”

“This is not the final product,” he added, noting that the bill does not include updates to Iryna’s Law — a broad criminal law sparked by the murder — or language regarding procedures for what happens when someone with serious mental illness is arrested, nor does it include components of the bill that were delayed while legislators considered tweaks to the law.

Here’s some of what the bill does do:

• Requires the Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, to give law enforcement access to BH SCAN, which lists available psychiatric beds across the state. DHHS would also have to develop real-time data on bed availability and allow authorized users to reserve available beds.
• Directs UNC Health to study the feasibility of taking over full or partial operation of the state-operated psychiatric hospitals: Broughton Hospital, Central Regional Hospital and Cherry Hospital. The N.C. Collaboratory is also directed to study the possibility of transferring the operation of the hospitals from DHHS to another entity.
• Orders several state agencies — including DHHS — to study how to improve the involuntary commitment process.
• Directs DHHS and the Sheriffs’ Association to develop a plan to use telehealth to complete the first examinations of individuals in custody of county jails.
• Orders managed care organizations — which help provide mental health services in the state — and DHHS to develop a plan to use mobile crisis units to complete the first mental health examinations for involuntary commitment.
• Allows judges to see if a defendant was involuntarily committed in the past three years.

New NC Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Council

State Superintendent Mo Green is accepting applications for a new North Carolina Superintendent’s Parent Advisory Council he announced on Thursday.

The state Department of Public Instruction says the council will strengthen meaningful family engagement in public education and support implementation of the state’s Strategic Plan. The plan calls for North Carolina to have the best public school system in the nation by 2030.

“It highlights the critical partnership of our students, their families and our teachers working together to educate our children,” State Board of Education chair Eric Davis told Green on Thursday. “It also highlights your natural instinct to listen and to understand before making decisions.”

The council will consist of 16 to 24 members, with representation from all eight of the state board regions. Members would serve for two years.

The council will meet four times a year in November, February, May and August. One meeting a year will be in-person with the rest being held virtually.

Go to https://tinyurl.com/26ej7bu2 for more information on the council, including a link to apply. Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 15.

Green’s predecessor, Catherine Truitt, had formed a similar group called the Parent Advisory Commission.

A few other things that caught my eye this week:

• Between the July 2025 passage of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which made several benefit changes, and February 2026, participation in federal food assistance programs declined in every state that reported data, as well as in Washington, D.C., according to preliminary data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture analyzed by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nationwide, in that time frame, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, fell by nearly 9%, according to the organization’s analysis. In North Carolina, participation declined by 11.27%.
• During a gaggle this week, Senate leader Phil Berger said on rumors that he is considering running in future years for the district seat he lost: “I have made no plans beyond Dec. 31. Don’t intend to make any plans until after we complete this term, complete this year.”
• The Board of Directors of Golden LEAF Foundation announced Thursday that President and CEO Scott Hamilton will retire at the end of this year. The board is set to begin a search process for the next president soon, according to a news release.

Headlines you won’t want to miss

• Should NC pass a law to protect outdoor pets from extreme weather?
• Mecklenburg missed ‘flashing red signs’ before girl found dead, NC legislators say
• UNC athletics celebrated Pride month in social media post. Now, it’s deleted.
• Bourbon tours for state lawmakers are under NC scrutiny. How we got here.
• NC House limits data centers, requires nuclear power before closing coal plants
• Canes fans confused by AI player photo posted by NC Senate candidate Michael Whatley
• NC Senate candidate Michael Whatley campaigns on tax cut for service workers

Thanks for reading Under the Dome

That’s all for now! Have a great day, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

• Ideas or feedback about our Under the Dome newsletter? Email our politics team at dome@newsobserver.com.
• Not a newsletter subscriber? Sign up here.
• Listen to the latest episode of our Under the Dome podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts.
• And learn more about issues facing North Carolina colleges and universities by subscribing to Higher Stakes, a weekly higher education newsletter from reporter Jane Winik Sartwell.

This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Involuntary commitment reforms pass NC House + New parent advisory council."

Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi

The News & Observer

Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi is a politics reporter for the News & Observer. She reports on health care, including mental health and Medicaid expansion, hurricane recovery efforts and lobbying. Luciana previously worked as a Roy W. Howard Fellow at Searchlight New Mexico, an investigative news organization.