Friends,

Late last week, the North Carolina House and Senate released and passed their version of the budget, following months of delay and stalled negotiations. Democrats in the General Assembly, as well as the general public, were given less than 24 hours to review the 625-page budget before voting. Republican legislative leaders introduced the budget as a conference report, meaning that the budget could not be amended before taking a vote. The budget passed through two rounds of voting on Thursday morning and early, early Friday morning, mostly along party lines. Governor Cooper has indicated that he will allow the budget to become law without his signature.

I would like to take some time to fill you in on what all is in the budget. The budget does include some important provisions, including Medicaid expansion and investments in mental health care. However, overall, this is a regressive budget that continues to damage public institutions, protect special interests and grab more power for Republican legislative leaders. 

Please let me know if you have any further questions about anything in this bill. Below are some top-level updates from some major issue areas, since I am unable to touch on everything covered in this bill.

Funding medicaid expansion is included in this budget.

After more than a decade, one of the final hurdles to Medicaid expansion - passing the budget - has been reached. When Medicaid expansion passed in April, Republican legislative leaders purposefully tied the funding to implement medicaid expansion to the budget. That means that over 600,000 North Carolinians will finally have access to care that is currently out of reach for them. This is a huge step for North Carolina, and I am grateful to the advocates who have worked tirelessly for years to get us here. 

Sadly, the delay in the budget corresponded to a delay in Medicaid expansion, so the soonest we could see implementation is now December. It is a sad state of affairs to see the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians get delayed due to a few legislators’ desire to award casinos to friendly developers. 

Over $620 million will be invested in mental health programs.

Another important win in this budget is the funding going towards expanding mental health programs. This is another critical priority that is finally coming to fruition. Throughout the pandemic, it became increasingly clear the extent to which the people of our state and our nation have been coping with mental health crises. I am grateful to see the legislature put funding towards providing care for folks. 

Crisis pregnancy centers are receiving more than $20 million. 

Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are centers designed to look and feel like family planning clinics. In fact, they exist solely to steer women away from seeking abortions. Additionally, they are not subject to many of the same restrictions that actual clinics face, such as licensure requirements or even confidentiality. They are largely unaccountable to the public, as they do not generate or publish reports on how they use the funding provided by the state. 

After months of delay, this budget represents yet another year of failing to adequately invest in our teachers, school personnel, and public education system.  

Each teacher and non-certified school staff will receive an average, cumulative raise of 7% over the next two years, with higher raises for newer teachers than for veteran teachers. 

As schools continue to struggle to find personnel and current teachers struggle to make ends meet, these raises fall far short of what is necessary. These raises fall well below inflation rates. Additionally, these raises are weighted lower for veteran teachers and provide no bonuses or supplements for teachers with advanced degrees. Hiring new teachers into the profession is vital for a strong education system, but so is supporting and developing the incredible personnel that already work in our public schools. 

Additionally, this budget falls far short of meeting our state’s obligations under the Leandro case, which ruled that North Carolina must provide all students with an opportunity for a sound basic education. This budget will continue the status quo, which is a public schools system in decline, particularly in under resourced areas and school districts. 

Community college faculty and non-faculty personnel, as well as UNC employees, will receive a 7% raise over the next two years. School bus drivers will receive a 9% raise in that time period. 

More than $500 million has been allocated yearly for private school vouchers by 2032, with no income eligibility limit. 

In addition to underfunding our public school system, the Republican legislative leadership has vastly expanded the Opportunity Scholarship program (OSP), more than tripling the current funding level. This program provides vouchers that transfer public money away from public schools and into private schools, which face little accountability on how money is spent or how students are taught. Additionally, private schools can deny admission and discriminate against students of various faiths, due to disabilities, and other reasons.

The budget also removes the income eligibility cap, which means that wealthy families are now able to receive public funds to send their children to private schools. In effect, this shift will lead to millions of dollars being awarded to upper class families to offset the costs of private education.

Private schools can provide great experiences and education for their students. However, taxpayer dollars should go to public education. Public schools have stronger, uniform accountability requirements and anti-discrimination requirements. Unfortunately, there have already been a number of high-profile cases of fraudsters creating fake schools to collect public funds via the Opportunity Scholarship program. This kind of fraud will likely increase as more money is added to the voucher program.

Our children and their future must be our priority. That is why we must reinvest in public schools.

The controversial UNC School of Civic Life and Leadership receives $2 million per year, as well as strict timelines for hiring a dean and faculty.

The new School of Civic Life and Leadership was announced earlier this year against the recommendations and advice of faculty. This was an unprecedented move directed by political appointees who govern the UNC system. Now, the legislature is providing millions of dollars per year and mandating when the new school must hire a dean and its faculty. 

Sadly, this is another example of the micromanaging of the UNC system, for political gain.



Like teachers, state employees will receive a raise of 7% over the next two years. In contrast, statewide politicians will receive raises between 14.9% and 22.5% in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

These raises continue to demonstrate a disturbing willingness to allow our state government to continue underfunded. For years, state agencies have been understaffed. This has resulted in slower and fewer services provided to North Carolinians. These raises, which fall well short of keeping up with inflation, are a slap in the face to the public servants who have worked so hard for the people of North Carolina in recent years. During the pandemic, especially, state workers continued providing vital services, even as their resources thinned.

The continued neglect of state employees will prolong the difficulty in hiring that has plagued our state agencies. As North Carolina continues to grow in population, it is more important than ever to invest in our government to grow alongside the people’s needs. Instead, our government continues to shrink, as our population increases. 

Meanwhile, elected officials receive raises that double the raises that state employees receive - in some cases, they are even getting triple! This difference is a snapshot of the misplaced priorities of the Republican-led legislature. 

Retired state employees will receive a one time 4% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).

Retired state employees also fare poorly under this new budget. Because inflation has been far higher than 4% in recent years, this COLA does not even break even with real-world cost-of-living changes that our retirees are facing. For all of the talk of inflation in the past two years, it is insulting to see Republican leadership choose not to meet that benchmark for so many folks across the state. 



Income tax rates will be lowered incrementally to 3.99% in 2026, with the potential for even further cuts later. 

In the past 12 years, Republican leadership has continually cut taxes, particularly for corporations and upper-class North Carolinians, while allowing public institutions to crumble due to lack of funding. 

This trend continues to harm North Carolinians across the state who face underfunded schools, longer wait times at the DMV, fewer environmental protections, and aging infrastructure. In order to have a North Carolina that works for everyone, we need our well-off residents and corporations to pay their fair share. This budget would continue to shift the burden of funding our state to middle-class, working and poor families and people in North Carolina.



Almost $2 billion is allocated for water and sewer projects across the state. An average of $3.1 billion will go towards the Highway Fund. 

These are important infrastructure investments, but we could be doing more for our state’s infrastructure.

These provisions, coupled with a ban on emissions requirements/inspections, represent a continued failure to invest in transportation other than cars. As the state continues to grow, there are more and more areas that would benefit dramatically from regional transit options. 

We should also continue to invest in expanding rural broadband and other critical projects to invest in rural areas of the state. As the Triangle and other metro areas continue to grow, we need to ensure that the rest of our state are served and supported.



Unfortunately, the budget bill is never only the budget, and this bill was no exception. There are a number of critical, important and dangerous policy decisions included in this year’s budget that further consolidate power in the hands of Republican legislative leaders and advance an extreme agenda. Below, I have described some of the most noteworthy policy changes made in the budget, with a dedicated subsection on some of the most concerning power grabs.  

One important piece of policy that did not make it into this year’s budget was allowing for more casinos in rural counties. This particular policy point was largely responsible for the delay in the budget process, as leaders such as Senator Phil Berger sought to force casinos into the budget, and later to tie them to Medicaid expansion in a standalone bill. However, Republicans were unable to reach a consensus and casinos were ultimately struck from the budget; casino authorization may yet come back later.  

A policy that did make it in the budget is a provision banning local governments from implementing prohibitions and fees on plastic shopping bags and other single-use products. Besides subverting local power, this prevents our local governments from making decisions that their people might want out of concern for the environment.

The budget also prevents counties - except for Mecklenburg - from issuing emissions-inspections requirements. It also forbids the state from imposing emissions standards on new vehicles or requiring utility services to offset carbon output. These pro-polluter policies are yet more examples of Republican leaders bowing to donors and special interests, rather than the health and needs of the people. 

Finally, the budget prevents state and local governments from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations, as we enter into another wave of rising cases and hospitalizations. Vaccines continue to be the most effective way to counter the spread of the disease, so I encourage everyone to keep up with your vaccines. 

Legislative Power Grabs

Some of the worst policy provisions included in this budget transfer even more power away from the other branches of government and into the General Assembly, particularly from the Governor. The budget would make more judges subject to the appointment of legislative leaders, rather than elections. The Judicial Standards Commission is a body that reviews the conduct of judges. Currently, it is engaged in a questionable investigation of Democratic Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls. This budget allows Republican legislative leaders to pack the commission with their allies.

It also gives unprecedented powers to some partisan legislative staff to enter any premises and seize records from businesses or entities that receive any state funding. This will only make it harder for state employees and people carrying out the business of the state to do their jobs. It could even go so far as providing a force of workers that legislative leaders can use to punish and harass their opponents. 

Finally, the budget gives legislators jurisdiction over whether their own records are public records. This is a direct attack on transparency and accountability that did not appear until the final version of the budget came out one day before voting. It is alarming to see the decline in oversight, even as the legislature gives itself more and more power. 



Allocates $2.7 million for implementing Voter ID requirements and SB 747, with just $1 million of that going towards voter education. 

Throughout this legislative session, we have seen a number of bills move forward that increase the workload and administrative burden on state and county boards of elections, without funding to implement these mandates. One of those bills, SB 747, included many such provisions. To be clear, I disagree with Voter Photo ID requirements, and I voted against SB 747. 

Although I am glad that elections workers are receiving some resources to make these changes and educate voters, these amounts are paltry compared to what they should be. The new voter photo ID requirements are a major change in the voting process - a change that will impact a number of voters who either do not know about the new requirement or cannot get a photo ID in time. Underfunding the voter education process for these requirements risks decreasing the number of citizens who can vote. The same can be said for SB 747, which removes the three-day grace period for absentee mail-in ballots and hampers same-day voting during the early voting period, among other provisions. 

The best way to overcome exclusionary voting changes is by spreading the word to every voter. This budget fails to provide the funding to educate every voter about these fundamental changes.

Gives a Legislative Services Officer (LSO) the ability to draft the language on ballots regarding proposed constitutional amendments. 

Currently, any proposed constitutional amendments are the responsibility of a committee made up of the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Legislative Services Officer from the General Assembly. This committee decides the language on the ballot for any proposed amendments. 

The budget shifts this responsibility solely to the LSO, who is not elected by the people of North Carolina. In addition to consolidating that power to one person, this change is an attack on separation of powers. The Attorney General and Secretary of State are both statewide elected officials and part of the executive branch. Because constitutional amendments originate within the General Assembly, it is important to have officials outside of the legislative branch weighing in on how these amendments are proposed to voters. Sadly, this is another power grab by Republican legislative leadership.

Prohibits participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).

The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) is a bipartisan, multi-state partnership that assists states in keeping voter rolls up to date by allowing elections officials to share information. It is an effective tool for detecting illegal voting. Because the federal government has little authority over elections systems, voluntary interstate programs such as ERIC are the best vehicle for this kind of collaboration. 

In recent years, far-right groups have pressured state legislators to walk away from ERIC, despite ERIC being a bipartisan group that works to keep voting records updated. It is a shame to see these conspiracies take hold here in North Carolina. 



Sadly, there are a number of provisions and programs that Democratic versions of the budget included that were left out of the final Republican budget, such as:

• Robust child care grants 
• Paid family leave
• Affordable housing funding

These are areas we could choose to prioritize and invest in. Expanding access to childcare and housing would benefit countless North Carolinians. Instead, Republicans continue to prioritize tax cuts for the wealthy.

Signing Off 

Thank you for taking the time to read through these updates. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions related to legislative events, or if we can assist in working with state agencies. 

You can always email me at allen.buansi@ncleg.gov or call my office at (919) 733-7208. If you’d prefer to contact my legislative assistant, Austin Hahn, you may do so at austin.hahn@ncleg.gov.

Finally, if you are not subscribed to this newsletter, or if you know someone who would like to be, you can sign up here.

Thank you,

Rep. Allen Buansi