Cooper to lawmakers: Don't forget me, or my veto, on state budget

The governor also revealed negotiating positions for House and Senate leaders, who haven't been able to reach a consensus plan on total spending in the state's general fund, a milestone Republican legislative leaders typically announce before unveiling more detailed spending plans.

The House started with a plan to spend $26.4 billion over the next fiscal year, Cooper said. The Senate was at $25.5 billion, he said. Since then the House has come down to $26 billion, the governor said during a monthly Council of State meeting involving Cooper and other statewide elected officials.

"I want to remind both chambers that (my recommended) budget was $26.6 billion, and that this is a three-way street in order to be able to get a budget," Cooper said, hearkening back to the last few years of state budget proposals, which the governor vetoed.

"We don't want to be where we were last time," Cooper said. "So I just want to remind people of that."

Spokespeople for Senate leadership declined after the meeting to confirm Cooper's numbers, saying they won't comment on internal negotiations at the General Assembly. Demi Dowdy, spokeswoman for Speaker of the House Tim Moore, said she wouldn't confirm the figures, but "there is movement in the right direction."

"As previously stated, the House will be passing a comprehensive two-year budget at some point this session in accordance with our Constitutional obligation to the people of North Carolina," Dowdy said via email. "It is up to the Senate how quickly we get there."

The state budget process is well behind normal pace this year, though the pandemic and the failure of state leaders to reach a budget deal the last several years leaves in question just what's normal now. But with GOP majority leaders in the House and Senate unable to reach agreement even on a top-line spending number, it's becoming less likely the state has a new budget in place by the July 1 start to a new fiscal year.

If the state doesn't hit that target, the current budget simply stays in place, avoiding any sort of a government shutdown. New building projects, employee raises and other increases in spending – including school funding tied to any expected change in the number of students – depends on new budgeting, though, raising the prospect that lawmakers will again turn to "mini budgets" to fund priorities they can agree on and leave the rest for later.

"I think the House knows that we're serious about where we have differences," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, the Senate's top Republican, said during an interview Thursday. "And where we have differences at this point has primarily to do with the total spend in the general fund budget."

Berger, R-Rockingham, said lawmakers have in the past stuck to a "strict policy" of keeping annual spending growth in line with inflation and state population growth.

"When you have one year where you have a jump in the general fund budget, what you've done is you've created a platform from which the next year's jump is even higher," Berger said Thursday. "We're pretty far apart as far as where we think that number ought to be."

Sometimes that number is called a spending cap at the statehouse. Cooper, a Democrat who has repeatedly called for more taxpayer spending for North Carolina public schools and other priorities, said Tuesday that he calls it "an investment cap."

Cooper also said Tuesday that people should expect a new consensus revenue forecast, a routine refiguring by administration and legislative analysts of how much revenue the state expects to collect, in the next few weeks.

The Council of State, made up of the governor and state government's nine other statewide elected officials, meets once a month, typically on the first Tuesday of the month. It met in person Tuesday for the first time in more than a year. Meetings throughout the pandemic were held remotely.