House and Senate Republicans on Monday were preparing to unveil the state budget after resolving remaining disagreements over the weekend and expect to vote on the spending plan this week.
The resolution of outstanding budget issues, which came after several meetings between House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger last week and discussions that continued over the weekend by phone.
House Majority Leader Brenden Jones said Monday morning that the “budget agreement is being finalized now, with votes scheduled for this week.”
Hall spokeswoman Demi Dowdy told NC Insider/State Affairs the final spending plan is expected to be released Monday evening or Tuesday morning, and will be taken up by an appropriations committee on Tuesday.
By Monday evening, however, House and Senate Republicans had confirmed the final documents wouldn't be released until sometime Tuesday morning.
Senate Republicans held a two-hour caucus meeting Monday afternoon. After the meeting, top budget writer Sen. Brent Jackson, R-Sampson, told NC Insider that he expected the budget to get its first hearing in an appropriations committee meeting Tuesday afternoon.
Jackson said committee plans and other details were still being worked out as of Monday evening.
Both chambers are expected to hold votes on the budget Wednesday and Thursday.
Jones, in a social media post, said the budget will include, on average, 13% pay raises for state law enforcement officers, 8% pay raises for teachers and a $1,750 bonus for all state workers who earn less than $75,000 per year.
The budget is also expected to result in more than $3 billion saved in the state’s reserves, Jones said.
That framework included an average raise of 8% for teachers, an increase of starting teacher pay to $48,000 and a state-funded $5,000 supplement for educators in the state’s most economically distressed school systems.
Most state employees are expected to receive an average raise of 3%, along with bonuses for the current fiscal year, and a onetime 2.5% bonus for retirees.
The framework includes a wide range of salary increases for law enforcement: an average 20% pay raise for the State Bureau of Investigation and Alcohol Law Enforcement, 17% for the State Highway Patrol, 15% for correctional officers and 10% for probation and parole officers.
Hall and Berger held a number of one-on-one meetings over the last two weeks after House and Senate budget chairs completed their work and submitted final lists of items that needed to be negotiated and resolved.
The two GOP leaders met before and after voting sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, and throughout the day on Thursday, to address items that remained points of contention.
Remaining items that needed more discussion last week included possible funding for an effort to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to the state, a disputed Wake County children’s hospital project and several capital investments, Hall said.
The budget agreement reached on Sunday is not expected to include state funding for the MLB expansion effort.
Limestone Supplier
Martin Marietta Materials, the Raleigh company that makes asphalt, gravel, and cement, is buying a limestone supplier in a $13.5 billion dollar deal. The company will take over Lhoist North America later this year, pending regulatory approval. The deal "will position Martin Marietta as the nation's leading lime and limestone franchise, while providing immediate scale and irreplaceable upstream materials platform across key Sun Belt markets and substantial high-quality limestone reserves," Martin Marietta CEO Ward Nye said in a conference call Monday morning. The purchase comes amid growing worldwide demand for limestone products, known as lime aggregates, which are used in everything from steel to computer chips. Lhoist also produces lime-based anti-stripping agents used on pavement. Martin Marietta Chief Financial Officer Michael Petro said these products will compliment Martin Marietta's existing pavement materials business.
Budd Block
U.S. Sen. Ted Budd took a stand against the Trump administration Thursday evening in order to get Western North Carolina additional relief from Helene. In a news release, Budd, a Republican from Davie County, announced he would vote against any supplemental funding bill put forward until Helene relief was added. A supplemental funding bill provides agencies additional funding beyond what was budgeted. “Nearly two years since Hurricane Helene ravaged our state, debris still clogs waterways,” Budd said in a written statement. “Roads, bridges and dams require repair or replacement. Homeowners are paying mortgages on properties that were wiped away. Quite simply, the need continues to outweigh what the state and local communities can bear.” He continued: “For that reason, I will vote against any supplemental appropriations package that does not include additional funding for Western North Carolina." Budd’s proclamation came one day after President Donald Trump submitted to Congress an $88 billion supplemental package to fund the Iran war, provide aid to farmers and to help combat Ebola.
House Republicans, voting in lockstep and aided by the floor absence of one Democrat and an unaffiliated lawmaker, overrode four more of Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes, enacting three bills into law and sending one to the Senate for final approval.
Three of the bills — House Bill 171 Senate Bill 227 and Senate Bill 558— ban diversity, equality and inclusion policies and programs in state and local governments, public schools and higher education. The fourth, Senate Bill 153, is an immigration enforcement measure that directs state law enforcement agencies to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and allow federal agents to train and delegate their enforcement duties to state officers.
Wednesday’s override votes came 11 months after House and Senate Republicans first acted to override several of Stein’s vetoes in July. At the time, both chambers successfully enacted eight bills over the governor’s objections.
Senate Republicans, who control a supermajority with 30 of the chamber’s 50 seats, voted to override four additional vetoes, sending those bills to the House. Republicans in the House, one seat shy of a supermajority and facing united Democratic opposition on the bills targeting DEI policies, waited nearly a year for an opportunity to defeat Stein’s vetoes.
That opportunity presented itself Wednesday when two swing-voting lawmakers, Rep. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County, who left the Democratic Party in March and registered as unaffiliated, and Rep. Shelly Willingham, D-Edgecombe, were not present on the House floor.
Their absences lowered the required three-fifths majority threshold from 72 to 71, allowing the GOP to override all four vetoes in party-line votes.
Cunningham and Willingham were both defeated in the March primary by challengers who targeted their past votes with Republicans, including multiple bills they helped the GOP override in July.
Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said that Cunningham and Willingham’s communities recently “came out in massive numbers to voice their displeasure with the way they’ve been representing them in Raleigh.”
“Today would not have been possible without them once again betraying their communities,” Clayton said.
With each vetoed bill, Republicans made motions to move to the previous question, a maneuver that immediately ends debate and gives the majority party and the minority party three minutes to make final remarks before a vote is taken.
Democrats strenuously objected and repeatedly urged House Speaker Destin Hall to allow for unrestricted debate to give them a chance to voice their opposition to the bills.
Hall replied that each of the bills had been extensively debated during initial movement through committees and passage on the floors of both chambers.
In a statement, Stein said House Republicans were “stoking the culture wars that divide us rather than fulfilling their long-overdue responsibility of passing a budget.”
“It's time for them to do their jobs for the people of North Carolina,” Stein said. “Instead, they are overriding my veto on bills to whitewash the diversity that makes our state strong and to take state law enforcement officers away from their existing state duties, forcing them to act as federal immigration agents."
A fifth vetoed bill that would legalize carrying a concealed handgun without a permit, and lower the age from 21 to 18, was not taken up by the House on Wednesday.
House Republicans held an hour-long caucus meeting following the four successful override votes, but upon reconvening, Hall announced that no further votes would take place.
The House, like the Senate, is also not planning to hold any votes on Thursday, meaning that the next voting sessions will take place on Tuesday.
Asked about the concealed carry bill, Hall told NC Insider/State Affairs “it’s not quite there yet” in terms of support in his caucus, but he believes “it has a realistic chance to get there” at some point before the end of the year.