The legislature will be temporarily adjourned until Wed. November 13th
without the Senate taking up the Budget Veto override or the Legislature sitting down with Governor Cooper and negotiating a Comprehensive, Fair and Balanced Budget that works for all North Carolinians. Instead, we have muddled along for months on a bipartisan basis, doing our best to keep our state government afloat with "
mini-budgets."
First the Governor joined Democrat and Republican Legislators to pass Budget
Bill
HB111, which funds our state government functions
at
the same level they were funded in the previous year
, excluding things that were paid for with one-time funds.
Next, we have passed some critical
public safety funding and
disaster relief
that we all agreed upon.
We also accepted the State Employee raises of 5% for 27% of State Employees that the Republican Conference Budget was in agreement with Governor Cooper's Budget on. However, we're clearly not finished yet.
Additionally, some other important bipartisan mini-budgets successes were
:
We expanded the personal tax exemption, which is
a solid working family tax cut.
We finally funded the clearing out of the backlog of untested sexual assault evidence and
rape kits with
HB29.
We also strengthened our
l
aws on sexual assault and
child abuse with
SB199. Along with this, the bill added sexual assault training and human trafficking training to our NC School Curriculum.
What we have not done,
and I stand with the Governor and his
veto until we do are
:
- Invest in adequate teacher and public educator pay raises instead of more corporate tax cuts.
- Pass a true voter approved School and Infrastructure Bond instead of a pork-barrel slush fund.
- Expand Medicaid, closing the healthcare coverage gap for a half million North Carolinians instead of wasting $4 billion of our tax dollars each year.
- Provide the remaining 73% of State Employees with a 5% raise and our retirees with a 2% COLA.
Governor Cooper is willing and ready to negotiate a Comprehensive Budget that is balanced, fair and serves everyone in our state. We can do better. For more details click
Billions Better.
