Weeks after the North Carolina Senate passed its plan for the state budget, the House will begin negotiations of its own.
Despite the upper chamber’s bill awaiting action, the House GOP leaders will likely begin their own plan from scratch. Publicly available details of what the House plan will include are scant. The two chambers have only agreed to the top-line spending amount — everything else is negotiable. And before a final version heads to Gov. Josh Stein’s desk, budget writers from both chambers will meet to iron out a compromise.
Lawmakers are expected to deliver a budget to Stein’s desk by June 30, the end of the fiscal year. But they have frequently gone beyond that date due to extended negotiations.
Senate Republicans’ budget lays out $36.2 billion in spending for the next year. It cuts hundreds of vacant state government positions, and some filled ones. It keeps in place a series of gradual GOP-led income tax cuts, including tax breaks for the wealthy that Democrats worry could send the state closer to a fiscal crisis.
Under the GOP Senate proposal, educators will receive an average 3.3% raise over the next two years. State employees would get a 1.25% raise and a $3,000 bonus. Law enforcement raises would be higher.
Stein’s budget proposal calls for more substantial pay raises for teachers. Under Stein’s plan, teachers would receive a 10.6% raise over 2 years. The starting teacher salary would increase to the highest in the Southeast.
House Republicans could diverge from the Senate’s doubling down on income tax cuts. Hall has left the door open for adjusting the existing rates, or “dialing the knobs.” But he’s ruled out any tax increases. The Republican Senate leader, President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), has been steadfast in his support for the cuts.
Democrats, meanwhile, have urged the GOP to pause the cuts — pointing to state economists’ projection that a budget shortfall could be on the horizon.
Leaders of the minority party have expressed broader frustration with the budget process, saying they’ve been granted almost no input. And they remain skeptical about Republicans’ confidence to finish negotiations by the end of June.
“I think it is very ambitious, and I think frankly hilarious, that they will get a budget by June 28,” Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch (D-Wake) told reporters last week.
