“First in Flight, Last in Budget”
My Vote on North Carolina’s State Budget
North Carolina is the last state in the country to pass a budget. For the better part of four months, Republican legislative leaders and Governor Roy Cooper have been negotiating the long-overdue state budget. The two parties have obvious policy differences, but when given the opportunity to create a budget that reflects our priorities and makes a significant investment into our state and the people in it, did the budget deal go far enough?
First, there are a lot of good provisions within the proposed state budget. I applaud Governor Cooper and fellow Democratic lawmakers for advancing improvements to earlier Republican budget proposals this session.
Here are a few good bipartisan provisions in our state budget:
- Investments over the course of the next several years to improve the physical infrastructure needs of our schools, sewage systems, waterways, and to increase broadband access.
- Increase the child tax credit, standard deductions, and eliminate the tax on military pension for our veterans.
- An increase in non-certified school personnel pay to $15/hour by 2023.
- Funding for grants to support violence prevention and safer schools.
After three years of not having a state budget, and after two years of working through the COVID-19 pandemic; many of my colleagues believed their negotiations were a critical first step. As Governor Cooper noted in his press conference on the budget, so many communities and people across our state need the resources that they stand to gain once this budget becomes law.
Unfortunately, as a legislator who represents the second-largest county and largest city in our state, I was unable to support this budget. Our state had the opportunity to do more for working families and educators in North Carolina with a multibillion-dollar budget surplus and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal relief that must be spent soon.
To start, Republican leaders still miss the mark as it relates to salary increases for our educators and supporting our educators.
- A 5% salary increase over two years is unacceptable, as the proposed raise doesn’t even cover past years’ recorded inflation of 5.9%. The North Carolina Association of Educators characterized the increased funding in the budget as “barest of the bare minimum and a missed opportunity to invest in our public schools.”
- Disrespects educators that dedicate their careers to serving our children by failing to restore master’s pay and keeping in place a teacher salary schedule that denies step increases for most teachers with more than 15 years of experience.
- Denies additional supplemental pay to educators in Mecklenburg county (along with Wake, Guilford, Buncombe, and Durham) because Republican leaders believe our counties already provide an adequate supplement. There is no justification for this measure, it’s pure politics, and for the thousands of educators in Mecklenburg; it’s unacceptable.
Next, this budget prioritizes the biggest corporations over working families in North Carolina.
- Eliminates North Carolina’s corporate tax rate by 2030. At 2.5%, North Carolina already has the lowest corporate tax rate in the country. To eliminate this revenue source is unnecessary and will undoubtedly have long-term consequences on future budget needs.
- This budget also stands to lower personal income taxes to 4.99% starting next year, down from its current 5.25%. It was mentioned on the Senate floor that 99% of North Carolinians will benefit from this slight reduction. While the sentiment is true, the fact remains that 100% of North Carolinians will be paying more in taxes than most corporations.
- Experts agree that our state must invest at least $5.6 billion more per year to meet our state’s constitutional mandate of providing students with basic education. However, collectively Republican tax cuts in this budget will reduce state revenues by $8 billion per year by 2030.
Lastly, and in some ways most importantly, this budget still fails to expand access to health care in North Carolina.
- At this juncture, Republican leadership’s continued refusal to even allow for a vote on Medicaid expansion is downright criminal to a majority of voters across the state.
- We continue to miss out on tens of billions in federal dollars that would expand healthcare access for about 500,000 North Carolinians, create thousands of jobs in our state, and protect and sustain vulnerable hospitals.
- As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, a true investment into the health of our state is common sense.
For some of my colleagues, the good in this budget outweighed the bad. For my constituents, for Mecklenburg County, and the long-term health and wellness of our state and our people; I disagree.
I voted “No” on this budget because I believe budgets should reflect our values. The proposed budget does not meet that expectation and I will not compromise on our shared North Carolina values.
