RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina state budget neared final legislative approval Wednesday, as GOP legislators who approved it highlighted its pay raises for teachers, tax breaks and reserves for protection from the next recession or storm.
But the two-year spending agreement, which could be at Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk by Thursday, didn’t advance until Democrats blasted tax cuts and spending reductions targeting the Democratic governor and attorney general. They also labeled the creation of a third state program for K-12 students to attend private schools using taxpayer money as vouchers “on steroids.”
They also bemoaned scores of funding earmarks for local governments or nonprofit groups when the funds could have beefed up statewide spending for public schools or rural broadband.
“The budget prioritizes tax cuts and pork-barrel spending,” House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, a Wake County Democrat, said during floor debate. “When you turn the pages, page after page you can feel the grease on your fingerprints.”
Republicans, firmly in control in both the House and Senate, took issue with their criticisms and dismissed the accusations that tens of millions of dollars in earmarks benefited areas represented by Republicans, saying they helped Democratic areas, too.
They said Democrats were just looking for excuses to oppose another GOP budget that cuts taxes for nearly everyone - not just the wealthy - gives healthy raises to educators, state employees and retirees, and builds the state’s reserves to more than $1.8 billion.
“Some people don’t seem to like small projects to help struggling communities; … some people don’t like savings,” said Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Wake County Republican and senior budget-writer, before the House gave tentative approval by a vote of 77-40. He added: “There are so many good things in this budget.”
About an hour later, the Senate gave its final approval to the plan 39-11, a nearly identical margin as on Tuesday, when the Senate gave the budget a preliminary OK. The House needs one more affirmative vote Thursday before sending it to Cooper, who this week called the GOP plan fiscally irresponsible. He could veto the measure, but an override is likely.
Not all Democrats are aligned with Cooper, either. Four Democratic senators and five Democratic House members joined all Republicans voting to support the measure Wednesday.
But strident House Democrats were particularly angry with provisions that ordered Cooper’s office to make nearly $1 million in administrative cuts next year and the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Josh Stein, to reduce legal and administrative services by 35 percent. The reductions weren’t included in the preliminary Senate and House budgets approved in the spring.
Stein’s office said the cut would require getting rid of 123 full-time employees, most of them attorneys, disrupting ongoing and future litigation.
“We simply will not be able to prosecute as many cases or handle as many criminal appeals,” a Justice Department memo released Wednesday said.
Cooper on Tuesday suggested the cut to his office was done out of political spite. The governor and Republican leaders have been fighting since before Cooper took office, and many of their fights have ended up in court.
Rep. Robert Reives, a Lee County Democrat, feared cuts in Stein’s office occurred because Republicans “don’t like the people that are running it.” Stein is a former state senator who has challenged legislative leaders recently in voter identification and redistricting lawsuits.
Responding to questions on the Senate floor, top Sen. Harry Brown of Jacksonville said he believed the cuts to Stein’s office can be absorbed: “I think he has more than enough money to do the job.”
In a nod to recent litigation, the budget contains provisions that would make it difficult for Cooper to hire outside attorneys to sue using taxpayer dollars, and leave final decision-making involving lawsuits challenging state laws or the Constitution to legislative leaders, not Stein.
Budget earmarks to local programs or charities have been used by both Democrats and Republicans when they were in charge of the General Assembly during times of revenue surpluses. GOP legislators offered such spending in the 2015 budget, but this year’s list of recipients is longer. Senate leader Phil Berger of Rockingham County called them appropriate expenditures of state dollars.
“I have a hard time criticizing an appropriation of $100,000 or $250,000 to a Boys and Girls Club, to a medical facility or a number of other things,” Berger said.
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