North Carolina Lawyers Weekly
RALEIGH (AP) Gov. Roy Cooper’s $24.5 billion spending plan for the 2018-19 fiscal year was unveiled May 10.
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 programs 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 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 the 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 the 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 the 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 ECONOMIC RESOURCES
— Collecting, testing and analyzing emerging contaminants in water supplies, reduce the 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 the 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.
