North Carolina’s Long-Overdue Budget Has Been Passed
After three years of political gridlock, the NC House passed budget for fiscal years 2021-2023. Source: News and Observer
After three years without a comprehensive state budget and months of negotiations between the two parties in the legislature and the governor, North Carolina finally has a budget for fiscal years 2021-2023. Governor Roy Cooper signed the $25.9 billion overdue budget on November 18th, meaning that for the first time since 2018, North Carolina has a budget. The budget’s priorities were disaster relief, teacher pay raises, and infrastructure such as high speed internet. Teachers receive raises which average to 5% over the next two years, and for the first time since 2000, money is being invested into the statewide university system’s physical infrastructure. The state also added to its largest rainy day fund in history, which now sits at $4.25 billion. This surplus rankled some Democrats, who argued that with so much extra funding, the state should make investments into structural change.
For example, Senate Minority Leader Democrat Dan Blue voted against the budget, saying the corporate tax cuts contained would cause future structural deficiencies in North Carolina. House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, both Republicans, argued the budget was part of North Carolina’s Republican-driven growth and would help the economy continue to bounce back. Governor Cooper released a statement, saying he signed the bill because after months of bipartisan negotiation, it addressed critical needs in North Carolina. He added, however, that he would continue to fight to make up for the deficiencies, such as his long-time priority, Medicare expansion. Overall, the bill passed with large margins in both the House and Senate, which respectively voted 101-10 and 41-7 in favor of the budget.
One of the most contentious areas in the bill was education. The budget provides between $700 million and $900 million less than what the $1.7 billion Leandro plan to improve North Carolinian education requires. The Leandro plan originates from a lawsuit filed in 1994 that alleged North Carolina was failing to provide its students with a “sound basic education,” which it guarantees in its state constitution. Over the years, the state Supreme Court has found that North Carolina has failed to meet its constitutional requirement, but little action has been taken by the legislature. In November 2021, Superior Court Judge David Lee ordered the state to fund the Leandro plan, a roadmap designed to bring North Carolina public schools up to the educational standard.
The NC GOP has called this a judicial overreach, arguing that the Leandro plan carried no force of law, and claimed the root cause of the issues were incompetent teachers in classrooms. Instead, they propose that more parental empowerment in the form of school choice would alleviate the problems in educational attainment students in North Carolina face, pointing out the budget funds Opportunity Scholarships, a controversial program that allows families to receive money to pay for private school tuition. Democrats reply that school choice is hardly a choice if the public educational system is failing, and point out that Opportunity Scholarships are overfunded, whereas the public education system is underfunded. Additionally, teachers in three major urban counties, Wake, Durham, and Mecklenburg, are not eligible to receive an educational financial supplement. Republicans contend the urban base allows for the counties to supplement their teachers without state help, but teachers there point out this policy not only disproportionately gives aid to white teachers rather than black teachers, but also removes funding from teachers who, like their rural colleagues, are underfunded.
After three years without a budget and as the last state in the union to get a budget, North Carolina finally passing a budget ought to represent a milestone, and could be an optimistic sign that perhaps bipartisan progress can be made from here. However, the fractures contained within and divisions surrounding the budget indicate that the work of governing the state only continues to grow more and more polarized. For North Carolina, the budget is only the beginning.