Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 11/22/21

The State Budget

On Thursday Governor Cooper signed the delayed North Carolina state budget into law. The $25.9 billion budget passed the NC House earlier that day with a 101-10 vote and the NC Senate on Wednesday with a 41-7 vote. Key elements of the approved budget include the following:

• Education Policy

  • 5% (over two years) raises for teachers, UNC system faculty and staff, and state employees, along with a tiered bonus of $1500 for many state employees and up to $2800 for teachers

  • Phasing out of the state’s Innovative School District, a statewide experimental program created by Republican lawmakers that allowed outside operators to take over a low-performing public school for 5 years

  • Insufficient funds to fully cover the costs mandated in the Leandro court order charging the state to ensure a sound basic education for all

  • Increased investment in the Opportunity Scholarships private-school voucher program, including increased scholarship amounts, a raised eligibility income cap, and a mandated $15 million per year to the program (up from $10 million) regardless of demand

  • Expansion of NC Promise program, which guarantees $500 in-state tuition to certain UNC system schools

• Economic and Housing Policy

  • The largest tax cut in state history, with the personal income tax rate cut to 4.99% next year and the corporate income tax phased out entirely by 2030

• Health Care Policy

  • No Medicaid expansion but extends Medicaid eligibility to pregnant women (for up to 12 months postpartum) whose incomes are lower than or equal to 196% of the federal poverty line

  • Full funding of the state health plan

• Environment

  • $265 million for land conservation and flood prevention and resilience

• Criminal Justice

  • $25 million for sexual assault services and $10 million to address the state’s rape kit processing backlog

• Governance

  • Limits on executive branch power previously vetoed by Governor Cooper as separate laws, including limiting the governor’s emergency powers and shifting the power to settle lawsuits from the attorney general’s office to the legislature

• Other

  • Allocation of $2.8 million in federal election security funds that had been left out of previous budget drafts

  • $1 billion for broadband expansion

  • Funding for nearly 700 local projects

Voting Rights

• On Thursday Republicans in the NCGA passed two elections-focused laws with no Democratic support. SB 326 would prohibit the counting of absentee ballots received after election night, while SB 725 would ban private donations for elections administration. The bills now go to Governor Cooper, who is expected to veto them.

Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 11/15/21

Economic Policy

• Republican leaders expect to complete floor votes on a $25.7 billion state budget in both chambers of the General Assembly by Thursday and to send it to Gov. Cooper soon after that. While Republican negotiators say they did not reach a compromise “deal” with Governor Cooper, they claim that the final budget includes much of what he wants. The governor will then have 10 days to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature. The budget is expected to include pay raises for teachers and state employees and funding for construction projects. It will also include tax cuts desired by Republican legislators. It is not expected to include Medicaid expansion, and it remains unclear if it will include an effort to limit the governor’s executive powers.

Education Policy

• NC Superior Court judge David Lee ordered the state to immediately disburse $1.7 billion dollars of the more than $6 billion in state surplus revenue in order to fund the first two years of a comprehensive public school improvement plan. The plan, known as the WestEd Report, was completed in 2019 and accepted by the State Board of Education and other defendants in the original 17-year-old landmark case, Leandro v. State of North Carolina. Judge Lee ordered disbursal of the funds after finding that the state has failed to provide an alternative plan to meet its constitutional requirements to fund public school education as mandated in the settlement. Republican legislators denounced the order, asserting that only the General Assembly has the constitutional authority to appropriate funds. The judge stayed his order for 30 days to allow for appeal, but it is not clear if state lawmakers have the right to file such an appeal.

Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 11/8/21

Governance

• On Monday Governor Cooper vetoed a bill that would have limited the governor’s emergency powers. The bill was the latest effort by Republicans to curtail the governor’s ability to issue emergency orders, and Cooper vetoed it hours before it would have become law without his signature. Republicans in the General Assembly have been critical of Cooper’s emergency actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and have repeatedly pushed for similar legislation.

Fair Representation

• On Thursday the NC House and Senate approved new maps for North Carolina’s state legislative and congressional districts, all of which heavily favor Republicans. In the new congressional map, Republicans would be expected to win 10 out of the 14 districts, and an additional district would be highly competitive between the parties. The new NC House map, which likewise creates more safe Republican districts, could enable Republicans to retake a supermajority in the House. Voters and advocacy groups had already sued over the failure to consider racial data in the creation of the new maps, and an additional legal challenge based on the partisan nature of the congressional map was brought Friday in state court by the same group of voters who had previously successfully sued over the state’s partisan gerrymander in 2019.

Economic Policy

• On Thursday the NC House Commerce committee approved a bill that would legalize sports gambling in North Carolina. SB 688, which would allow sports gambling among people 21 years of age and over and license and tax sports gambling vendors, passed the NC Senate three months ago, but it is unclear whether the bill has enough support in the House to pass.

Education Policy

• This week a group of Republican state legislators sent a letter to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz objecting to a diversity, equity, and inclusion training program recently held by UNC’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life. The letter described the contents of the training as “indoctrination” and asked a series of questions about the program’s cost and about the chancellor’s intentions and beliefs regarding this and similar trainings. The letter falls into a pattern of increased conservative opposition across the country to the way race is taught in schools and universities, framing all grievances regarding educational curricula and diversity training under the umbrella of “critical race theory.”