RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina's $30-billion budget, stuffed with Republican priorities but also containing a long-sought Democratic victory on Medicaid expansion, will become law without Gov. Roy Cooper's signature, he announced shortly after the GOP-held Senate gave final legislative approval Friday morning.
The budget, delayed by Republican disputes over expanded gambling in the state, comes months after the July 1 start of the fiscal year.
The expansion of Medicaid, a top issue for Cooper since he was first elected governor in 2016, will give health insurance to hundreds of thousands of the state's working poor. Expansion passed previously in the session, but its implementation was tied to the budget.
Democrats in the House spent hours objecting to the budget Thursday, attacking decisions such as the GOP-backed choice to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on private school tuition vouchers rather than paying higher raises to teachers or state workers.
Most state workers would get a 4% raise this year and a 3% raise next year, if the budget becomes law — which is widely expected. Public school teachers would see a range of step increases on their salary ladder, from 3.6% over the next two years for teachers with over 15 years of experience, up to a nearly 11% increase for beginning teacher pay from $37,000 a year now to $41,000 by the 2024-25 school year.
Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, said that by the 2024-25 school year the average teacher should be making more than $60,000.
Other provisions in the budget include:
- Legislators would be even more shielded from public records laws: State lawmakers have already exempted themselves from some parts of North Carolina's public records laws. The new budget allows lawmakers in the future to refuse any records requests they don't want to comply with.
- No COVID mandates: The budget will ban schools, colleges, state agencies and local governments from demanding employees get a COVID-19 vaccination, except for hospitals and other facilities that have to require it to qualify for federal funding.
- New secret police? The budget gives sweeping new powers to a legislative committee to investigate government agencies and private companies that get state funding, and to force anyone involved in the investigation to keep it a secret. Democrats have compared the proposal to Nazi- and Soviet-era secret police squads, saying it'll be used by GOP leaders to carry out political retribution.
- Drivers license changes: Most people would only have to renew their driver's license every 16 years, instead of every eight years. The state DMV, however, says that would violate federal rules.
- The bill raises the retirement age for judges on the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals from 72 to 76, a change that would allow Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican, to stay on the bench longer. Supreme Court justices are elected, and the change would help protect the court's 5-2 Republican majority. Another provision would eliminate nonpartisan members of the Judicial Standards Commission, which investigates ethics complaints against judges, and would replace them with political appointees chosen by legislative leadership.
- The legislature would get new authority over the state’s community college system in multiple ways, including a new requirement that the system president be confirmed by the General Assembly. This is one of several power shifts the legislature’s Republican leadership has contemplated this session.
- A ban on the State Board of Elections joining a national program aimed at combating voter fraud, called ERIC, which has been targeted by national conservatives after the 2020 elections.