The NC House is rolling out its state budget plan. Here’s what we know so far.

North Carolina’s state budget is inching closer to completion, as lawmakers in the N.C. House of Representatives began rolling out their spending proposals Thursday morning.

Some of the details that might be of the widest public interest — like proposals for tax cuts, or raises for teachers and other state employees — aren’t expected to be announced until next week, however.

But lawmakers are now discussing some of the other details of the budget. Those include debates on how much the state should be spending on everything from criminal justice reform to road construction, education needs, COVID-19 relief and more.

The N.C. Senate has already passed its own spending plan, so the House needs to pass its plan in order for the two chambers to formally get together and hammer out a compromise that they can then send to Gov. Roy Cooper.

The stakes are higher this year than normal since North Carolina has not had an official budget since 2018. Cooper vetoed the 2019-20 budget, and the Republican-led legislature couldn’t convince enough Democrats to override his veto — nor were they willing to negotiate with Cooper and try to reach a compromise.

This year, however, the two sides have seemed less antagonistic. The 2020 elections saw voters once again elect a Democratic governor and a Republican majority at the General Assembly. And in May, the News & Observer reported, relations seemed less frosty between Cooper, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger.

“While not exactly best friends now, the political rivals are getting along a lot better,” The N&O reported of the leadup to budget discussions this spring.

Now, several months later, the finish line is in sight at the legislature with the Senate passing their plan and the House now on the verge of passing theirs, too.

What’s in the new House budget plan?

Details trickled out in bits and pieces Thursday for the House budget plan.

Not all of it is public yet, though, and the parts that are now known were announced in a way that made it difficult for the public to follow along. Lawmakers held a series of topic-themed budget meetings Thursday morning, all in different rooms but at the same time.

The meetings took a break around lunchtime but are expected to continue in the afternoon.

If you’re interested in the budget documents or watching the livestream of the various meetings, you can find them at www.ncleg.gov.

The budget writers plan to spend this weekend hammering out the final details of some big-dollar items like raises and tax cuts, said Rep. Donny Lambeth, a Winston-Salem Republican who’s one of the lead budget writers.

They then plan to post the full budget online Monday for people to read, then will spend all day Tuesday debating it and possibly making last-minute changes. The vote is then expected later in the week.

The fact that the House proposals for taxes and raises aren’t finalized yet likely indicates that the House plans to propose different numbers on each than what the Senate already passed.

Much of the rest of the budget, however, is already starting to come together. Some details are the same as the Senate proposed, but not everything.

Health care

Included in the House’s proposed budget for Health and Human Services are several provisions that match what the Senate proposed in its version of the budget.

Among them is a measure that would expand Medicaid coverage to parents who have temporarily lost custody of their children. Under current state law, some parents who qualify for Medicaid coverage lose that coverage if their children are taken into state custody, creating a health care access barrier for those that are ordered to receive substance abuse or mental health treatment to be reunified with their children. Sen. Danny Britt sponsored a standalone bill that also addresses the issue that stalled before making it to the Senate floor. The language of that legislation is now incorporated into each chamber’s budget proposal.

Another provision in both the House and Senate budget temporarily provides child care facilities additional time to hire replacements for lost qualified educators before they lose a star in their rating. That proposal passed the Senate in a standalone bill in April, but has since stalled in the House.

The House also incorporated a policy proposal that would change who is allowed to visit patients in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice facilities during declared disasters.

“In the event that circumstances require the complete closure of a hospital to visitors, the hospital shall use its best efforts to develop alternate visitation protocols that would allow visitation to the greatest extent safely possible,” the legislation reads.

The House did not include one provision that the Senate proposed in its budget that would expand Medicaid to those qualified for a full year after delivery. The House likely omitted that measure as a negotiating strategy for when the two chambers work out their differences in conference, since the Senate has signaled that this version of expansion is high on its priority list.

The House proposal also mandates insurance coverage for a broad swath of telehealth services.

“Any requirement for a face-to-face, in-person encounter shall be satisfied with the use of asynchronous telecommunications technologies in which the health care provider has access to the patient’s medical history prior to the telehealth encounter,” the proposal, which was also included in a standalone House bill, reads.

The Affordable Healthcare Coalition of North Carolina, with close ties to Blue Cross Blue Shield and was formerly known as the North Carolina Coalition for Fiscal Health, opposes the legislation, saying it would increase costs and undermine quality of care.

“Government mandates, like those in House Bill 149, pose a serious threat to telehealth’s long-term viability, while letting multibillion-dollar healthcare systems bill you for emails, texts, chats and “remote monitoring,” the group wrote in a post earlier this year.

The standalone bill, House Bill 149, passed the House in May but has stalled in the Senate, where it has little support.

‘General government’

The budget also contains a section called “general government” where various miscellaneous programs are housed. Much of it is fairly niche but a few items stuck out.

One large chunk of spending is a proposed $200 million loan program aimed at encouraging the construction of new apartment buildings, duplexes or other similar types of multifamily housing in certain areas of the state, “to assist with the development of multi-family affordable housing units.”

There are also smaller grants for groups that help victims of sex trafficking, and for businesses owned by women, minorities or disabled veterans.

The budget also does not propose giving any additional staff to Cooper, a Democrat. However, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, would be allowed to hire two new staffers. The budget would give him $120,000 to hire an education policy adviser, and just under $90,000 to hire a second “constituent services” employee.

Public safety

After education and public health, public safety is the next biggest part of the state budget. The House proposes spending several billion dollars there, on everything from the National Guard to the Highway Patrol, the state prison system, disaster relief programs and the courts system.

The Justice and Public Safety budget committee met for most of the day Thursday to discuss those parts of the spending plan. One issue that has been high-profile for several years now is North Carolina’s backlog of “rape kits,” the collection of DNA and other evidence taken from sexual assault survivors. The backlog got so bad in recent years that police in some cities, like Charlotte and Fayetteville, simply destroyed the evidence instead of trying to get it tested. Other cities are years or even decades behind.

“It’s (expletive) here,” a frustrated Rep. Joe John, D-Wake said about the backlog. He asked if the budget would finally provide enough money to get all the kits tested.

John led the State Crime Lab, which tests many but not all rape kits in North Carolina, before becoming a legislator. The budget would give the crime lab an extra $500,000 a year specifically to address the rape kit backlog, plus money to hire five more scientists. Due to the size of the backlog, many police agencies have also sought grants to hire private labs to do the testing instead of the crime lab. The budget contains a total of $9 million over the next two years for that.

Committee co-chair Rep. Allen McNeill, R-Randolph, told John that the budget probably would not fix the problem.

“It just seems to be an issue that never goes away, no matter how much money we throw at it,” he said. “And so I hope and pray that what we’re doing here ends this discussion. But I am not optimistic about that.”

The plan also contained a much larger sum, $35 million, to block cell phone signals at state prisons. McNeill said it was intended to stop prisoners from making calls or texts on illicit phones.

Democrats objected, saying the money could be better spent elsewhere — and that the state should be trying to fix the root cause of the problem instead of just reacting to it. Both McNeill and Rep. Garland Pierce, D-Scotland, said prison workers are usually the ones who smuggle the phones in for the inmates. The state should instead use the money to raise their pay, Pierce said, which could make smuggling less appealing. Or at least, he said, institute better security checks of staffers.

“This is ridiculous, to spend that kind of money,” Pierce said. “This is going too far. I just hope we can really clean this up. We need to face the real issue.”

Education

House members set aside $10.1 billion for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction in its budget proposal, but did not say how much it will propose raising K-12 teacher salaries.

Rep. John Torbett said that number will come out Monday and be presented Tuesday during the full appropriations meeting.

“I think that everyone will be happy,” Torbett said. “I really, really do.”

The House’s proposed raises for teachers and other state employees are expected to be higher than the Senate’s proposed state government pay raises of 3% over two years for nearly all state employees, including teachers. The only exception was corrections officers in state prisons, who would get a 7% raise this year.

Cooper has proposed spending more on raises — 10% for teachers over both years, and between 5% and 7.5% for other state workers.

The education section of the House’s budget proposal also includes numerous policy changes, including a provision that calls for the modernization of sexual health, mental and emotional health and anti-bullying and anti-harassment lessons. If changes are made to these lessons, a school board must hold a meeting with parent input and have materials being used for lessons available on its website if the bill is signed into law.

Residents would also be able to challenge what’s being taught in schools. Local and state committees will be formed under the House budget that would allow people to raise concerns about teachings. If the complainant doesn’t agree with the outcome of the local committee review of those materials, they can appeal to the state committee.

What did the Senate pass?

The Senate tax cut proposal calls for completely eliminating corporate income taxes in North Carolina, plus reducing the personal income tax rate from 5.25% to 3.99% and increasing the standard deduction as well.

The Associated Press reported that the Senate’s tax cut plan would cost the state over $2 billion in revenue over the next two years. State lawmakers plan to spend around $26 billion per year for the next two years, The News & Observer has reported.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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