Newsletter for May 31, 2007

The North Carolina Senate passed its version of the state budget this week.

The good part of the budget is that it does allow the “temporary taxes” passed in 2001 to expire.  These taxes are ¼ cent on the sales tax and ½ cent on the higher income earner’s income tax.

The bad parts include a lack of County Medicaid relief-although they have a proposal to relive County’s completely in 2008-2009 and more than $1 billion dollars in new debt that does not require approval of the voters.  This kind of debt is called “Certificates of Participation” or COPs.

Below is a summary of the Senate Budget:

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS: Highlights of the $20 billion 2007-08 state spending plan given tentative Senate approval Wednesday. The figures reflect increases or reductions to base budget expenses, some of them based on projected rises in recurring spending.

Salaries and benefits
        -- Average 5 percent salary increase for public school teachers; 5 percent for community college and university faculty and judges; 4 percent for most state employees and non-faculty university workers: $496.7 million.
        -- Two percent cost-of-living adjustments for state retirees: $29.6 million.
        -- Fifth installment of retirement funds intercepted in 2001 to narrow budget shortfall: $10 million.
        -- Cash influx to cover projected shortfall in state employee health plan: $120 million.
Public schools
        -- Replace 170 fewer school buses next year: -$4.5 million.
        -- Keep teacher assistant funding at 2006-07 level: -$10.9 million.
        -- Implement plans to restructure seven high schools: $1.4 million.
        -- Student performance bonuses for teachers: $70 million.
        -- Maintain 18-1 student-teacher ratios in kindergarten-3rd grade: $37.5 million.
        -- Provide more funding for low-wealth school districts and schools with at-risk students: $13.1 million.
        -- Expand "Learn and Earn" high school initiative to nine more schools: $2.5 million.
        -- Deliver college courses electronically to high school students through Gov. Mike Easley's Learn and Earn Online program: $6.5 million.
        -- Upgrade public school broadband connectivity: $7 million.
        -- Increase school district funding for instructional supplies and materials: $2.4 million.
        -- Increase district funding for academically and intellectually gifted programs: $1.8 million.
        -- Increase district funding for children with disabilities: $5 million.
        -- Provide additional money to help small-county school districts: $2.1 million.
        -- Hire 30 literacy coaches in schools with eighth grades: $1.7 million.
        -- Supplement funding for elementary school cafeterias operating in a deficit: $800,000.
        -- Create education reform pilot program in five school districts with after-school programs, teacher recruitment and retention bonuses, teacher mentoring and assistance in science and math curricula: $4.4 million.
        -- Establish technology pilot program where computers will be provided to all teachers and students in five high schools: $3 million.
        -- Department of Public Instruction computer system upgrades, data warehousing: $4 million.
        -- Train mathematics and civics teachers in financial literacy: $1 million.
University of North Carolina system
        -- Reductions of 23 positions, other spending cuts recommended by President's Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness: -$4.1 million.
        -- Reduce campus operating budgets based on future recommendations of advisory committee: -$11.3 million.
        -- Restores funding for projected fall university enrollment: $6 million.
        -- Provide tuition grants to 1,000 additional students attending private colleges in North Carolina, raise grant to $1,950: $4 million.
        -- Provide need-based financial aid for more than 46,500 students at UNC campuses: $27.6 million.
        -- Continue funding for UNC Online degree and certificate programs: $4.2 million.
        -- Operating funds, equipment and faculty startup funds for UNC programs at North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis: $16.5 million.
        -- Create joint graduate School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering at N.C. A&T State University and UNC-Greensboro's Millennium campus: $1.4 million.
        -- UNC-Chapel Hill law school operating funds: $2 million.
        -- N.C. State University bioengineering program funds: $5 million.
        -- Begin Education Access Rewards North Carolina Scholars program, which provides up to $4,000 grants to low-income college students: $50 million.
        -- Math and science teacher recruitment efforts for N.C. State University initiative: $1 million.
        -- Create research competitiveness fund to support interdisciplinary research for emerging industries in state: $8 million.
        -- New tuition waivers for recruiting and retaining graduate students: $2 million.
        -- Summer programs for incoming freshman at seven system schools: $1.2 million.
        -- Matching funds for UNC system campus endowed professorships: $6 million.
        -- Fund Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University to attract federal investment in field at Piedmont Triad Research Park: $8 million.
        -- Expand initiatives at Center for Bioenergy Technologies at N.C. State University: $3 million.
Community colleges
        -- Fund enrollment for additional 2,300 students: $3.3 million.
        -- Increase community college tuition by 6.3 percent: -$7.5 million.
        -- Additional funds for Allied Health programs: $5.6 million.
        -- Improve community college broadband connectivity: $3.8 million.
        -- Expand male minority mentoring program at 10 more campuses: $300,000.
        -- Funds for community college efforts at North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis: $1.3 million.
        -- North Carolina Motorsports Consortium funds: $500,000.
        -- Advanced matching planning funds for campus capital projects: $10 million.
Health and Human Services
        -- Various reductions in HHS Secretary's Office: -$8.5 million.
        -- Sustain provider network that coordinate free care for low-income uninsured patients: $2.3 million.
        -- Competitive grants for community health centers: $5 million.
        -- remove 339 children from child-care subsidy waiting list, increase lagging subsidy rates: $8.4 million.
        -- Fund 850 scholarships for child care providers studying early childhood education or child development: $1 million.
        -- Extra Smart Start funding to neediest counties: $1.3 million.
        -- State match to purchase 844,000 treatment courses of antivirals in case of pandemic flu and create climate-controlled storage space: $9.7 million.
        -- Fund HIV prevention and activities, including counseling and testing: $2 million.
        -- Hire 62 public school nurses: $2.1 million.
        -- Help medical care program for uninsured cancer patients: $1 million.
        -- Additional screening and diagnostic services for breast and cervical cancer: $2 million.
        -- Eliminate Medicaid provider inflationary reimbursement increases, with some exceptions: -$55.8 million.
        -- Reduces Medicaid pharmacy payments for certain prescription drugs: -$17.8 million.
        -- Medicaid cost containment activities, including increased fraud and abuse detection: -$15.3 million.
        -- Savings with required prior authorization for mental health and HIV-AIDS drugs and for personal care services: -$11.2 million.
        -- Supplemental payments for critical access pharmacies: $2.3 million.
        -- Two hundred additional slots for Community Alternatives Program: $3 million.
        -- Expand Medicaid coverage for foster care adolescents age 18-20: $216,000.
        -- Fully fund N.C. Health Choice program: $7.5 million.
        -- Reduce funds for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services based on historical availability of funds: -$2.3 million.
        -- Realign mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services for other programs: -$24.7 million.
        -- Fund mental health, crisis services, to be distributed to local management programs: $17.1 million.
        -- Fund local crisis services to mentally ill and find employment for mentally ill, developmentally disabled and substance abusers: $2.5 million.
        -- Reduce budget of Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh to account for anticipated closure in the fall: -$31.8 million.
        -- Reduce budget of John Umstead Hospital in Butner to account for anticipated closure in the fall: -$35.3 million.
        -- Open and fund new central regional psychiatric hospital in Butner: $62.4 million.
        -- Transfer half of forensic unit from Dorothea Dix Hospital and Broughton Hospital in Morganton: $4.7 million.
        -- Operating cost subsidies for housing for the disabled: $2.5 million.
Natural and Economic Resources
        -- Transfer Agriculture Department research stations to University of North Carolina system: -$9.2 million.
        -- Hire two agricultural safety officers to conduct migrant housing inspections and train farmers: $125,000.
        -- County grants to adopt local programs to enforce statewide private well construction standards: $300,000.
        -- Eliminates 25 vacant positions in Department of Environment and Natural Resources: -$1.1 million.
        -- Various Division of Forest Resources reductions: -$1.9 million.
        -- Fund N.C. state aquariums to replace admission receipts: $2.5 million.
        -- Matching funds for clean water, drinking water revolving funds: $9.4 million.
        -- Promote N.C. viticulture industry, help Surry Community College viticulture program: $10 million.
        -- Regional film commission funds: $300,000.
        -- Promote International Home Furnishings Market in High Point: $1 million.
        -- Create N.C. Green Business Fund, providing no-interest loans to small private business to encourage environmentally based economy: $1 million.
        -- One North Carolina Fund for economic development: $14 million.
        -- One North Carolina Small Business Fund for economic development: $5 million.
        -- Help Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte: $2 million.
        -- Fund N.C. Institute of Minority Economic Development: $200,000.
        -- N.C. Community Development Initiative: $500,000.
        -- N.C. Minority Support Center: $1 million.
        -- Support Defense and Security Technology Accelerator, a business incubator to boost economic development in homeland security and defense industries: $2 million.
        -- Create incentives for broadband in rural areas, distribute funds for cable access channels through e-NC authority: $4 million.
        -- N.C. Biotechnology Center create three "regional centers of innovation": $3 million.
        -- Expand N.C. Rural Economic Development Center Economic Infrastructure Fund and establish Rural Economic Transition Program: $19.5 million.
Justice and Public Safety
        -- Modernize technology in court system: $8.6 million.
        -- Create two new positions for Judicial Standards Commission: $193,000.
        -- Hire 155 new prosecutors and support staff, including 60 assistant district attorneys and 15 district attorney investigators: $11 million.
        -- Hire 300 new deputy clerks: $11.9 million.
        -- Hire 42 new magistrates: $2 million.
        -- Funds for 10 new District Court positions: $1.5 million.
        -- Funds for three new special Superior Court judges: $285,000.
        -- Expand family and drug treatment courts, hire about 19 new positions: $1.5 million.
        -- Hire 15 new staff for Guardian ad Litem program: $1.1 million.
        -- Raise hourly rate for privately assigned attorney for indigent defendants in non-capital cases: $4.1 million.
        -- Eliminate 75 vacant positions in the Department of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention. -$2.5 million.
        -- Staff and contractual service costs for flood plain mapping program: $3.7 million.
        -- Gang prevention, intervention and suppression initiative grants from Gov.'s Crime Commission: $3 million.
        -- Reduce backlog of victims' compensation unpaid claims: $1 million.
        -- Hire more sworn agents, staffers and technicians at State Bureau of Investigation, startup cost for Triad regional crime laboratory: $1.8 million.
Transportation
        -- Reduce Department of Transportation division administration funds to pay for Interstate 40 resurfacing project: -$11.8 million.
        -- Security management equipment at 31 Division of Motor Vehicle locations: $2.5 million.
        -- Purchase one aircraft to upgrade department fleet: $3.4 million.
        -- Increase funds for DMV technology upgrade for commercial driver's licenses: $3 million.
        -- Hire 40 additional ferry division personnel, pay for rescue boats and generator upgrades to meet Coast Guard regulations, as well as operation expenses: $6.5 million.
        -- Reduce expenditures for Triangle Transit Authority's commuter rail project: -$23.4 million.
        -- Streamline freight rail operations through relocating or building new tracks and interchanges: $3.9 million.
        -- Replace obsolete State Highway Patrol helicopter and establish airborne unit to perform search and rescue operations during disasters: $3.6 million.
        -- Create 24 positions to support advanced statewide emergency responder radio network: $2.3 million.
        -- Reduces Highway Trust Fund money for urban loops, city streets and other roads: -$6.3 million.
        -- Reduces available Trust Fund money with gasoline tax capped at 29.9 cents per gallon: -$8.1 million.
Other agencies and funds
        -- Reduce utilities budget needs for Department of Administration: -$1 million.
        -- Increase funding for rape crisis and sexual assault funds: $800,000.
        -- Hire four additional State Capitol Police officers: $186,000.
        -- House remains of Civil War Confederate ironclad CSS Neuse: $500,000.
        -- International Civil Rights Museum: $500,000.
        -- Expand Arts Council activities: $2 million.
        -- Increase operational support for Queen Anne's Revenge archaeology project: $150,000.
        -- State aid to local libraries: $475,000.
        -- N.C. Housing Trust Fund, including money to build apartments for people with disabilities: $11 million.
        -- Continue home foreclosure protection pilot program: $1.5 million.
        -- Reduce by 2 percent Department of Revenue items related to temporary employees: -$1.8 million.
        -- Redact personal information from Secretary of State business entity database: $813,000.
        -- Reserve for morale, recreation and welfare fund distributed to military installation: $1 million.
Reserves and capital projects
        -- Continue upgrade of state's human resources, payroll and financial systems: $30 million.
        -- Eliminate all non-university position vacant for longer than six months: -$34.4 million.
        -- Equipment for state secondary data center: $9 million.
        -- State match for water resources development projects: $20 million.
        -- Reserve to install fire sprinklers in dormitories across UNC system: $9 million.
        -- Special indebtedness for state construction projects, most university buildings: about $1.2 billion.
        -- Increase information technology services operations: $9.5 million.
Tax provisions
        -- Increase judicial fees, dedicated to court system technology and staff upgrades: $36.8 million.
        -- Reserves for future tax credits or adjustments: -$30 million.
(THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/30/07)

Please call me if I can help.

I can be reached in Raleigh at (919) 715-3015 or in Harnett at (910) 897-8100 or by emailing davidl@ncleg.net