State lawmakers plan to wrap up their session this week without a full budget agreement. That impasse prompted the state Senate and House to propose scaled-back spending bills — but so far they can't even agree on the details of that.
Known as a mini-budget, the legislation would provide funding for time-sensitive budget needs. The Senate's proposal — which passed the chamber on Tuesday — doesn't include pay increases for teachers and state employees, but the House mini-budget would give most state workers a 2.5% raise and increase teacher pay by an average of 6.4%
Neither chamber's bill would address scheduled income tax cuts, which have been the major sticking point between House and Senate Republicans in the larger budget battle.
Both mini-budgets would fund enrollment growth at public schools, community colleges and universities, and they include funding for the Medicaid program.
So far, Republican leaders from the House and Senate haven't been working together on a mini-budget. "We have sent forward what we think is necessary," said Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell. "We're on a short timeline. If they want to negotiate something, we're willing to negotiate it."
House Speaker Destin Hall says the Senate's spending bill includes too much of that chamber's policy preferences. "The bill sent over really is not a mini-budget," he said. "It sort of creeps into trying to get as close to a comprehensive budget as possible without having one."
Asked if the legislature could leave for its summer break next week without any mini-budget, Hall responded "yeah, it's certainly possible."
The Senate's "mini-budget" plan
The Senate wants to add dozens of new positions to understaffed Division of Motor Vehicles offices. Sen. Graig Meyer, D-Orange, questioned whether that's the right approach for an agency with a high vacancy rate.
"We got to figure out how to fill the positions that we have, which probably means raising their pay or providing better workplace conditions or something," he said.
Also in the Senate's "mini-budget" bill:
- The Senate's plan for a government efficiency division in the state auditor's office, known as the Division of Accountability, Value and Efficiency, or DAVE
- $252 million for economic development incentives for JetZero's aviation facility in Greensboro
- A transfer of more than $1 billion to the state's "rainy day fund"
- $30 million to continue the "Healthy Opportunities" program that provides things like food and rides to Medicaid recipients in low-income communities
- Additional staff for the Environmental Management Commission
- A pilot program to open popular State Historic Sites on Sundays
- Allowing teachers to get their scheduled "step" pay increases, although the overall salary schedule would not change
Provisions from the Senate budget bill passed in April that aren't in the mini-budget plan include:
- A budget cut for PBS North Carolina
- Shifting $500 million from the NC Innovation organization to fund a new children's hospital
- The elimination of hundreds of vacant positions across numerous government agencies
- The elimination of the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission, which investigates wrongful criminal convictions
- New tolls on state ferry services that are currently free
- An increase in the maximum weekly unemployment benefit from $350 to $400
- A mandate that UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State University play against each other regularly in basketball
The House's mini-budget plan
Rather than take an immediate vote on the mini-budget plan that passed the Senate Tuesday, the House introduced a pair of its own bills a few hours later in the Appropriations Committee.
In addition to the state employee and teacher raises, the bills would:
- Eliminate 20% of vacant positions across state government
- Give retired state employees a 1%, one-time cost-of-living adjustment
- Cut more than $15 million from inpatient psychiatric treatment at local community hospitals
- Add new positions at the State Board of Elections and Office of State Auditor
Provisions from the House budget bill passed in May that aren't in the mini-budget plan include:
- Funding three new DMV offices to reduce wait times, including locations in Fuquay-Varina, Cabarrus County and Brunswick County
- An increase in the standard deduction for income taxes, a tax exemption for some tipped wages and a back-to-school sales tax holiday that the state eliminated in 2014.
- Adding more childcare subsidies by increasing reimbursement rates, an effort to deal with funding shortfalls at childcare facilities
