AN ACT to remove minimum educational requirements for community‑funded and volunteer prison chaplains and to appropriate funds.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  The Department of Public Safety shall have no written or unwritten policy setting mandatory minimum educational requirements for persons serving as community‑funded or volunteer chaplains.

SECTION 2.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Public Safety the sum of seven hundred fifty‑five thousand nine hundred four dollars ($755,904) in recurring funds in the 2022‑2023 fiscal year to be used to hire 10 full‑time clinical chaplain positions.

SECTION 3.  Section 2 of this act becomes effective July 1, 2022. The remainder of this act is effective when it becomes law.