Democratic leaders in the General Assembly continued Wednesday to call for a new state budget, saying Republicans' failure to reach an agreement amongst each other is causing undue financial stress across the state.
"This fiscal year began two months ago, but we're still waiting to hear from their leadership whether or not we're going to have a budget, when we're going to get it and, that said, because of course there are only a small number of people who are making that decision," House Minority Leader Robert Reives, D-Chatham, said Wednesday.
The General Assembly has scheduled one limited session a month until next April. This week was that session for August, with no votes taken and a scant handful of lawmakers in the building.
Democrats learned last Thursday that there would be no votes this week, said Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake.
"We're all here ready to work. We showed up today. We will show up at any given day that they want to go ahead and invite us to the table," Batch said.
The budget process
Democrats have been frustrated by the lack of progress on the state's two-year budget, which the General Assembly is supposed to pass in odd-numbered years. Republicans hold a supermajority in the Senate and are one vote away in the House.
This year's budget process started in the Senate. When the budget reached the House, 27 Democrats voted with Republicans to return a revised version to the Senate.
The House budget proposal included larger raises for teachers than the Senate's proposal and proposed delaying scheduled income tax cuts. It also provided state workers with a 2.5% raise instead of the 1.5% and $3,000 in bonuses over the biennium that was part of the Senate's budget.
"We knew it was the best deal North Carolina was going to get. We also knew that most, if not all, of the components in that budget we supported would face an uphill battle to survive the Senate scalpel," Reives said.
The Senate did, in fact, vote on June 3 not to proceed with the budget. Since then, negotiations have been taking place behind closed doors.
In July, the General Assembly did pass a stopgap spending measure that included provisions like $600 million to help rebalance the state's Medicaid budget, $823 million for ongoing state government construction projects and funding for enrollment growth at state schools and universities.
“Senate Democrats and their fear mongering are entirely irrelevant to this process. House Republicans will not rush the budget process at the expense of our state employees, teachers, and other needs of the state," Demi Dowdy, a spokeswoman for Speaker of the House Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, wrote in a statement.
Batch criticized how Republicans largely omit Democrats from budget negotiations and House and Senate Republicans' inability to reach an agreement with each other.
"We've made good faith efforts to work with Republican colleagues despite their political games. But the truth is, Republicans aren't even interested in working with each other, let alone us. Because at the end of the day, they don't want government to work," Batch said.
Lauren Horsch, a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, defended Senate Republicans' legislative record.
Horsch also pointed to a 2016 law that allows North Carolina's budget to effectively roll over if the General Assembly doesn't reach agreement on a new spending package. That means government still remains operating at the previous year's level, but large adjustments like employee raises and tax adjustments need to wait for the broader agreement.
"Democrats conveniently ignore that North Carolina does have a budget. Hysterical theatrics don’t change that fact. If given the opportunity, Democrats would rip school choice and educational freedom away from families, let crime run rampant and tax hardworking North Carolinians to the hilt," Horsch wrote in a statement.
Horsch argued Senate Republicans have introduced legislation that provides billions of dollars in Helene relief funds, added driver license examiner positions at the state's understaffed Division of Motor Vehicles and "rein in government spending."
Reives stressed the impact that not having a new full spending measure is having across North Carolina, pointing to uncertainty at schools that have returned to the classroom, at state agencies that are trying to figure out what initiatives to fund and among state employees who are unsure of their future.
Protracted budget fights are stressful, Reives said, for more than 76,000 state employees.
"It is hard to, I think, explain to people who aren't in the middle of this how difficult this is when you're going through this every year and you're trying to stay in a profession," Reives said.
He continued, "And I do honestly believe there are people who want to see this get broken. They want to see less state employees. They want to see less public schools. They feel like the world's a better place if we stop doing that. But my thing is, these people have chosen to do this. State employees have chosen to sacrifice what they can make in the private sector to come make this state a better place."
