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25 things from the Senate budget

Working our way through the state Senate's proposed budget, a billion or two at a time.

Posted Updated
State budget
By
Travis Fain
, WRAL statehouse reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — There are more than 25 things in the Senate's proposed $25.7 billion state budget.

This is just a proposal from Senate Republicans. After it clears the chamber later this week, the House will weigh in. There’s plenty Gov. Roy Cooper won’t like in the final compromise budget, so the GOP majority will have to bring him on board if they actually want a budget signed into law.

But here are some of the things that stand out as things stand now:

COVID money

The state has billions of dollars coming in federal pandemic relief money passed in the American Rescue Plan, and Senate Republicans wove plans for most of that spending into their budget bill.

The first year of the budget relies on $4.9 billion in ARP money. The second year, $300 million, leaving $283 million for later, according to Senate staff.

How’s it spent? For starters:

  • There’s $1 billion for JOBS grants to businesses that already got a Paycheck Protection Program loan or some other sort of government help to get them through the pandemic.
  • There’s another $500 million for small businesses that didn’t get that sort of help but can show their sales last year were at least 20 percent below 2019 numbers.
  • There’s $1.27 billion in water and sewer project funding around the state, addressing a particular need for rural communities struggling to repair aging systems.
  • There’s nearly $700 million to expand broadband networks in the state, about $500 million less than what Cooper has proposed, but close to what House leaders asked for.

Left out? A number of Cooper's priorities, including grants of $6,000 a year or more to help students attend a public university or community college in the state.

State Board of Elections

The State Board of Elections would lose its investigations division, which would move to the State Bureau of Investigation. This is the entity empowered to investigate allegations of election fraud.

Pat Gannon, spokesman for the elections board, said the proposal also cuts a third of the board's staff, including almost two-thirds of its IT personnel by eliminating federal election security funding.

Gannon said the bill:

  • Removes the ability of the board to staff using federal Help America Vote Act security funds earmarked for protecting and enhancing election security, crippling the agency’s ability to continue to work on modernizing the Statewide Election Information Management System, as well as the agency’s IT security roadmap
  • Eliminates all voting systems staff, who ensure voting equipment adheres to state and federal standards, and the agency’s one existing cybersecurity position
  • Greatly impedes the agency from addressing vulnerabilities and preventing attacks

Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, the elections chairman in the Senate, said the funding cuts represent a return to normal, dialing down federal funding now that pandemic-era election measures likely won't be needed. He said that can be adjusted later if need be.

He also said some of the IT positions could be kept by switching from federal to state funding for them.

As for the investigations shift, Hise said senators believe "the investigative body needs to be separate from the decision-making body."

He also said the State Board of Elections is a partisan board, whereas the SBI is a nonpartisan investigative agency. The elections board has three Democrats and two Republicans, all ultimately appointed by the governor, and Republican lawmakers have gone back and forth with Cooper over the years fighting over control.

Policy changes

Budgets are mostly about money, but lawmakers like to change policy there, too, particularly when it’s an idea they might not be able to get through the legislative process on its own.

In this budget, Senate Republicans want to rein in the governor’s emergency powers, something GOP lawmakers have tried a few times over the last year without success. This language would allow the governor to shut down large swaths of the economy, as he did for much of the last year, and exercise other emergency powers for only 10 days at a time without concurrence from the Council of State.

The council has 10 members – the governor and all other state officials elected statewide.

The council could vote to extend Cooper’s orders by 45 days. After that, it would be up to the legislature to continue emergency actions, and this change would go into effect Sept. 1.

The Senate budget also includes language limiting the state attorney general’s power to approve lawsuit settlements, requiring legislative leaders to sign off on any settlement if the underlying lawsuit targets state law and they’ve either intervened in the suit or were named in it.

This goes back to an elections lawsuit settlement struck last year, changing the state’s absentee ballot deadline after early voting had started and upsetting Republican leaders who didn't consent to the change and said they were surprised by it.

Corrections pay scale

The Senate budget would create a new pay scale for corrections officers, giving them annual step increases like state troopers.

This is something prison system leaders and the State Employees Association of North Carolina has asked about for years, though the $32 million annual price tag is far lower than some proposals.

This is what the new scale would look like:

Proposed salary scale for NC corrections officers, per recommended state Senate budget, June 2021.

The Senate budget also has $5.2 million in it to alleviate salary compression for certified staff who wouldn’t be slotted into the correctional officer salary schedule. It cuts $15 million from the prisons budget to do away with salary supplements for employees at facilities with vacancy rates exceeding 20 percent.

"The Governor’s budget (also) repealed the high-need facility salary supplements and included a correctional pay scale," Lauren Horsch, spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, said in a statement. "We heard from relevant stakeholders that a pay schedule would be preferable over a supplement since they believe it would help increase recruitment and retention."

Lead and asbestos in schools

The proposal has $150 million in it – again, from federal pandemic stimulus funds – to catalog and address lead pipes, lead paint and asbestos in schools and child care centers around the state.

The program would create new databases for lead and asbestos and start the process of remediation. It sets aside $32.8 million to test for and address lead levels in the drinking water at public schools and child care facilities. About $117 million would go toward lead paint and asbestos abatement.

More COVID money

The Senate budget also taps federal pandemic funding to pay state employees bonuses: $1,500 for those making less than $75,000 a year and $1,000 for those making more.

Law enforcement, including correctional officers and prison staff, as well as those who work in a 24-hour residential or treatment facility, would get $1,500. Total cost of all this: About $545 million.

There’s another $100 million to pay $1,500 bonuses to direct care workers who were on the front lines during the pandemic.

This is in addition to small salary increases included in the budget.

Medicaid extension

This budget wouldn’t expand Medicaid as contemplated by the Affordable Care Act, which is no surprise since Senate Republicans have been set against the multibillion-dollar expansion for close to a decade.

But it would extend Medicaid benefits for many new mothers from 60 days after a child's birth to an entire year. That change, which has bipartisan support, would go into effect in April 2022.

It would provide coverage for women with incomes at or below 196 percent of federal poverty guidelines, which is about $34,100 a year for a single mother having her first child.

New veterans home

The plan includes $30 million to match expected federal funding for a new veterans nursing home in Wake County.

It has another $3.7 million in it to provide operating funds for a similar new facility in Kernersville.

Roads

The bill has $2.8 billion in it, over two years, for transportation projects.

There's another $1.2 billion in it over that time for road resurfacing projects, according to a Senate summary. The bill would also increase the Department of Transportation's General Maintenance Reserve by $250 million over the two years to respond to storms and do other maintenance.

This reserve fund has struggled to keep up in recent years with needs, particularly after hurricanes.

DPS split

The budget would create a new cabinet position, elevating the state prisons system to its own agency.

That would split a new Department of Adult Correction out of the Department of Public Safety, moving prisons, alcohol and chemical dependency treatment programs, prison health serves to the new entity.

Juvenile Justice would remain part of DPS, as would the State Highway Patrol, the Division of Emergency Management and a number of other functions.

Land

Conservationists were pleased to see significant funding to buy and preserve open space in the state.

A group called Land for Tomorrow broke it down like this:

  • A $60 million increase in the first year, and a $40 million increase in the second year, for the state's land and water fund
  • A similar $100 million increase for the parks and recreation trust fund
  • Another $55 million over the two-year budget for the farmland preservation trust fund

"Investment at this level would be a major step forward for land and water conservation in North Carolina," Bill Holman, state director of The Conservation Fund and chairman of the Land For Tomorrow coalition, said in a news release.

DHHS headquarters

A once-contemplated relocation of the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters from Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh to Granville County is still off.

This budget would fund a move to land the state owns on Blue Ridge Road, putting about $110 million toward the $244 million project cost over the next two years.

UNC HQ to Raleigh?

There’s more than $13 million in the budget to study the state government complex in downtown Raleigh over the next two years and to plan for moving University of North Carolina System offices there from Chapel Hill.

Such a move has been contemplated before and has its critics.

The budget also has about $2.5 million in it to renovate and make repairs throughout the legislative complex, where lawmakers and their staff work.

Legislative staff bonuses

While we’re on the subject of the legislature: There’s nearly $22 million in the budget, from federal American Rescue Plan funds, to give legislative staffers bonuses and fund some $8 million worth of IT improvements in the building.

Other things budget writers highlighted

These bullet points were taken from a larger collection Senate Republicans included in a news release they put out Monday on the budget:

  • Dedicates $4.3 billion to the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund over the next two years, $3 billion of which is available for projects ($1.3 billion is obligated to pay for previous debt)
  • Funds stream debris removal at $138 million over the biennium
  • Funds construction of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University with $76 million. The total authorized cost of the project is $215 million.
  • Provides $55 million for North Carolina State University’s new STEM building. The total authorized cost is $80 million.
  • $40.9 million each year for school psychologists, which includes an additional $9.8 million to ensure that every school district has at least one psychologist
  • Expands eligibility and increases funding for the Opportunity Scholarship school voucher program by $76.8 million
  • Provides $15 million for the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory’s research on PFAS, so-called "forever chemicals," as part of the 2021 Water Safety Act
  • Two dozen new positions for the state Department of Environmental Quality for emerging contaminant response, landslide mapping, dam safety, permit transformation and underground storage tank management
  • Allocates $10 million for testing of new rape kits and clearing the state’s rape kit backlog
WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief Laura Leslie contributed to this report.

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