Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Pieces of the House Budget Puzzle Fall Into Place

North Carolina legislative building
Dave DeWitt
/
WUNC
N.C. General Assembly

North Carolina House representatives are introducing parts of their two year spending plan.

Education, Health and Human Services, transportation, and judicial appropriation committee meetings take place throughout Thursday as policy makers begin to digest parts of a $21 billion state spending plan.

This stop in the budget process is analogous to a pre-meal snack. The one before you head out for a late dinner, prior to the appetizer and well before the main course. House lawmakers introduced components of a spending plan today. The full House plan should come out late Sunday.

“Well we’re at the very early stages right now. So ask me in 48 hours and I’ll have a lot more to say,” chuckled Speaker Pro Tem Paul Stam.

The largest piece of the budget pie belongs to education. Here are some of the initial takeaways on funding for public schools.

  • NC Elevating Educators Act of 2015 – After initially stalling in the House, this proposal is in the initial budget blueprint. It would promote differentiated pay among teachers, establish advanced teaching roles of some teachers and could potentially increase class size. Right now, it is drafted at $15 million over two years.
  • Textbooks and Digital Resources – Would allocate another $50 million for  textbooks and digital resources, bringing total state funding to$74.3
  • Driver Training – This provision restores $26 million in state support for driver training programs for one more year
  • Charter School Accelerator – This component supports pilot program administered by PEFNC (Parents for Educational Freedom) to accelerate charter school development in rural North Carolina. Total: $1 million
  • Opportunity Scholarships – Increases funds from $6.8 to $17.6 million for the 2015-16 academic year.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services is the other major area of appropriations. Spending for Medicaid, the state-funded insurance program for people of low income, falls under that department.

The initial House budget proposal for the state health department would increase funding for Medicaid by $748.1 million over the next two years. 
 
The proposed DHHS budget would set aside $6.3 million over the next two years to reform North Carolina's Medicaid program, which grows every year and is one of the state's biggest expenditures. However, House budget writers have not specified how they would reform the program.
Additionally, this proposal sets up to $25 million aside from the sale of the state's 308-acre Dorothea Dix property in Raleigh to convert rural hospital beds for mental health patients.
 

“The appropriations committee members and the chairs are working diligently – many of them were here last night working very late and a lot of them will be here for a long time today,” said House Speaker Tim Moore.

Democrats took issue with some elements of the spending plan.

“Not just this year, but going forward – are we on track to get to that national average? We say we want to be competitive. Are we on track to get to that national average? Are we restoring the funding cuts we took out,” asked minority House Leader Larry Hall

Details on any salary adjustments for teachers are expected in the full House spending proposals, which is due out late Sunday.

“There are some token things done in the budget. As someone said maybe it’s 'feel good or look good,' but if you look beneath it – we are not doing what we need to do and be responsible to the citizens of North Carolina," Hall said.

Hall would like to see Republican leadership put the projected $400 million projected surplus toward education.

Other spending proposals include:

  • Around $17 million in recurring increased funding for North Carolina Courts to cover general operations, juries and expert witnesses.
  • $75 million to the State Ports Authority for channeling dredging, and equipment upgrades in Wilmington and Morehead City.

This spending plan comes two months after the Governor’s budget was released. After the House votes on a final budget, the Senate will introduce its draft in about a month. The chambers will then work to find middle ground. The long session will adjourn sometime this summer.

Jeff Tiberii is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Jeff joined WUNC in 2011. During his 20 years in public radio, he was Morning Edition Host at WFDD and WUNC’s Greensboro Bureau Chief and later, the Capitol Bureau Chief. Jeff has covered state and federal politics, produced the radio documentary “Right Turn,” launched a podcast, and was named North Carolina Radio Reporter of the Year four times.
Jorge Valencia has been with North Carolina Public Radio since 2012. A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Jorge studied journalism at the University of Maryland and reported for four years for the Roanoke Times in Virginia before joining the station. His reporting has also been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and the Baltimore Sun.
Reema Khrais joined WUNC in 2013 to cover education in pre-kindergarten through high school. Previously, she won the prestigious Joan B. Kroc Fellowship. For the fellowship, she spent a year at NPR where she reported nationally, produced on Weekends on All Things Considered and edited on the digital desk. She also spent some time at New York Public Radio as an education reporter, covering the overhaul of vocational schools, the contentious closures of city schools and age-old high school rivalries.
Related Stories
More Stories