(The Center Square) – Three weeks to the deadline, adjustments for North Carolina’s two-year budget are projected to arrive late again.
General Assembly chamber leaders acknowledge the differences are significant, possibly as much as $1 billion. Republicans have three-fifths majorities to the number in both the 50-member Senate and 120-member House of Representatives.
Rep. Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, is leaving his speaker post and the chamber in a bid for Congress where he is favored to win in November. He said this week making a statement with higher pay for teachers and state employees is part of the holdup.
Sen. Phil Berger, president pro tempore of his chamber, says the difference in proposed budgets is in the neighborhood of $1 billion. He’s called some of the spending “pork,” or largesse of lawmakers’ projects.
June 30 is the end of the fiscal year. In 2023, the new budget Sept. 22 marked the approval date by the General Assembly after months of negotiation ending with a $60.7 billion spending plan inclusive of $17.3 billion for education this year and $17.9 billion for next; and a record-setting $7.33 billion appropriation in health care the first year, and $7.76 billion in the second.
The House version could surface in the coming week and reach a floor vote.
Gov. Roy Cooper has deemed public education in a state of emergency, although not by executive order such as when hurricanes hit. He’s long advocated for increased salaries for teachers and pumping money into public schools.