RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Highlights within Gov. Roy Cooper’s $24.5 billion spending plan for the 2018-19 fiscal year unveiled Thursday. Unless otherwise noted, monetary figures are adjustments to what the legislature already budgeted for the year in the two-year spending plan approved last June.
SALARIES AND BENEFITS
- More than 8 percent average pay raise for teachers, with no teacher receiving less than a 5 percent increase. The maximum base teacher salary paid with state funds would increase from $51,300 to $54,900: $99 million.
- $150 instruction supply stipends for teachers: $15 million.
- New principal salary schedule resulting in average pay raises of more than 8 percent: $13 million.
- Salary increase for rank-and-file state employees of 2 percent or $1,250: $246 million.
- Additional $1,000 salary increases for nearly 33,000 state law enforcement officers, state nurses and other institutional employees: $32 million.
- Supplemental retirement contributions for correctional officers: $10 million.
- 1 percent cost of living raise for retired state employees and teachers: $46.5 million.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
- Building updates and equipment upgrades to improve safety at public schools and University of North Carolina and community college system campuses: $65 million.
- Hire up to 500 additional school nurses, counselors, psychologists and social workers, along with mental health personnel training: $55 million.
- Hire more police officers for high schools, with grant program for local governments to hire officers for elementary and middle schools: $10 million.
- Eliminate required reductions at Department of Public Instruction: $4.1 million.
- Public school textbooks and digital materials: $15 million.
- Build more classrooms to meet lower-grade size reductions: $75 million in lottery and other gambling proceeds.
- Expand academic/intellectually gifted student programs through grants: $3 million.
- New community college system program covering tuition and some fees for courses and programs for high-demand fields: $30 million paid from unemployment insurance taxes.
- “Finish Line” grants of up to $1,000 for community college and public and private university students of facing financial emergencies just before completing their degrees: $20 million paid from unemployment insurance taxes.
- UNC system faculty bonus reserve: $13.9 million.
- Community college system faculty bonus reserve: $9.4 million.
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
- Expand Smart Start early childhood program: $15 million.
- Increase child care subsidy payments to cover 9,000 more children.
- Hire four workers in Division of Public Health’s water safety unit to address emerging contaminants: $527,000.
- Beef up state public health laboratory: $2.6 million.
- Expand Medicaid coverage to 670,000 additional people through the federal health care law: No additional state funding.
- Treat and help with recovery programs for an additional 1,450 opioid and heroin users: $9.9 million.
- Prepare for opening of new Broughton state mental hospital in Morganton, including 169 hires: $11 million.
JUSTICE AND PUBLIC SAFETY
- Increase staff and training and create focused programs for influx of 16- and 17-year old soon entering the juvenile justice system due to “Raise the Age” legislation: $10 million.
- Hire 25 assistant district attorneys and investigators: $3.7 million.
- Process untested sexual assault kits held by local law enforcement agencies and counted through a statewide audit: $2.1 million.
- Operating and hiring 77 workers in first phase of long-term care facility at Central Prison: $5.6 million.
- Restore portion of reductions required within Department of Justice: $3.2 million.
NATURAL AND ECONOMC RESOURCES
- Collecting, testing and analyzing emerging contaminants in water supplies, reduce backlog of water discharge permit renewals: $8 million, with 45 new hires: $8 million.
- Streamline environmental permitting process: $4.5 million.
- Competitive grant fund for businesses seeking employee training and expanded apprenticeship programs: $10 million paid from unemployment insurance taxes.
- Rural economic development grant programs: $12.2 million.
- One North Carolina Fund incentive program: $2.9 million.
- Site development costs for Triangle Tyre Co., which is building a plant in Edgecombe County: $10 million.
- Maintenance at state historic sites: $1.4 million.
TAXES AND REVENUE:
- Freeze corporate income tax rate at 3 percent in 2019: $42 million.
-Create two individual income tax brackets in 2019: one at 5.25 percent and the other at 5.499 percent for single filers making over $100,000 and married couples filing jointly making over $200,000: $68 million.
- Retool unemployment insurance tax to lower effective rate, but direct revenue from surcharge for workforce training programs.
- Distribute deed stamp tax revenue to Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, Clean Water Management Trust Fund, Farmland Preservation Trust Fund and Housing Trust Fund: $18.7 million.
- Create film rebate program that targets large productions.
OTHER AGENCIES AND SPENDING
- Broadband deployment grants to establish high-speed internet service in areas without it: $20 million.
- Bonds to supplement previously-approved capital projects and Rockingham County Youth Development Center: $81 million.
- Design and construction of African-American monument on state Capitol grounds: $1.8 million.
- Preparations for 2020 Census: $1.5 million.
- Hurricane Matthew relief: $139.5 million.
- Increase savings reserve above $2 billion: $184.1 million.
- Repairs and renovations reserve for government buildings: $125 million.
- Cooper also recommends a November 2018 referendum for $2 billion in bonds for school construction.
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Sources: Gov. Roy Cooper’s office; Office of State Budget and Management.
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