State Budget

The state House’s budget bill would delay scheduled income tax cuts while giving state employees and teachers larger raises than the Senate is proposing.

The N.C. House began releasing its budget proposal Thursday, and Republicans are planning cuts in what's expected to be a tight budget year.

Senators voted Monday night for the measure that directs $31.4 billion in spending for the next fiscal year that starts July 1. But the House plan would spend $31.7 billion and offers additional teacher and state employee pay raises.

The UNC System Board of Governors allocated $3.7 billion from the General Assembly. This includes investments in faculty salary increases, athletics and rural healthcare.

Federal regulators have given their final approval for North Carolina to begin offering Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of low-income adults on Dec. 1.

Six towns in Dare County have filed a lawsuit to block part of the state budget bill that bans them from regulating a new state-funded affordable housing project led by political donors.

North Carolina’s legislature is now exempt from the public records law that governs other branches of government. The change comes alongside a major expansion of the legislature’s ability to seize documents from state agencies and private contracts.

The state budget includes a long-requested rate increase for private duty nursing, but advocates say it will take more to recruit enough nurses to care for complex patients.

Environmental advocates say that a provision in the new state budget will impede efforts to ban plastic bags and reduce solid waste pollution, especially among North Carolina's rivers.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced Friday that he’ll allow the new state budget to become law without his signature.