(The Center Square) – Senators in North Carolina are scheduled to work a budget proposal through three committees Tuesday.
The 2025 Appropriations Act, known also as Senate Bill 257, is to be heard first in the Appropriations/Base Budget Committee. Next is a stop in the Finance Committee, followed 15 minutes later by the Pensions and Retirement and Aging Committee. Senate Bills 258 and 263 carry the same title.
President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, noted in his opening address in January the General Assembly has “moved away from the unsteady rollercoaster of boom-and-bust budgets toward consistent, conservative, fiscally sound budgets.”
The legislation is only beginning, according to the state legislative website. Filed March 11, it was at two pages at midday Monday.
Typically, the governor is first to offer a budget proposal, both chambers follow, and then the negotiations ensue. July 1 is the start of the fiscal year, though it was late September in 2024 when the midterm adjustment was finalized.
Because of the July 14, 2016, signing of a law by Republican former Gov. Pat McCrory, the state government avoided shutdown during a three-year budget impasse that began after Cooper’s veto in 2019. Instead, the law allowed the state to operate on the previous spending plan. It remains in effect today.
North Carolina has a population estimated at 11 million, ninth largest in America and up 37.5% from 8 million just a quarter of a century ago.
Spending on education was the largest share of the last state budget at $17.9 billion for 2024-25, and $17.3 billion for 2023-24 of the $60.7 billion two-year plan.
Democratic Gov. Josh Stein has proposed a two-year budget of $67.9 billion, also known as Senate Bill 440. Two years ago, both chambers of the General Assembly were about $6 billion below former Gov. Roy Cooper.
Cooper in eight years only signed one two-year budget (2021-22), one midterm adjustment (2022) and allowed a two-year budget to become law without his signature (2023-24), the latter tied to his long-sought request for Medicaid expansion.
Cooper vetoed two-year budgets for 2017-18 and 2019-20, and midterm adjustments in 2018 and 2024. Veto overrides enacted two-year budget legislation for 2017-18 and midterm adjustments in 2018 and 2024.
