Extended session cost may near $2M

by Matt Caulder, NC Capitol Connection, August 14, 2015.

North Carolina legislators haven’t agreed yet on a spending plan for the current year – but they are still spending taxpayer money as they wrangle over the budget.

The Legislature passed a continuing resolution (CR) Wednesday afternoon that will give legislators until the end of the month to put a permanent budget in place for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Senate Bill 560 serves as an extension to the CR that was set to expire Friday that was passed June 30, on the eve of the 2015-16 fiscal year.

But now, with legislators expected to be in session two months after the start of the fiscal year, the costs are adding up.

According to an Associated Press report, every day the Legislature is open costs taxpayers about $42,000, putting the cost for the protracted session, not including weekends, at $1.38 million.

Adding up the rest of the weekdays in the month tacks on another $504,000 to the bill the taxpayers are responsible for, putting it at $1.8 million.

The costs include staffing, printing and the usual expenses for operating office buildings. Moreover, the state’s 170 lawmakers collect $104 per day for expenses.

The Legislature usually meets Monday for meetings and holds either a skeletal non-voting session or a short session, and then meets Tuesday to Thursday, taking off Friday.

Through Aug. 14, of the $1.38 million cost of the session, $462,000 of it has been on weekdays that the legislators are not meeting, mostly made up of Fridays.

The General Assembly has taken off 17 weekdays since the fiscal year began, including a week for the July 4th holiday.

If the current listed calendar through the end of the month holds, that number could rise to $714,000.

House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) has already said the session could last into mid-September to come to terms on Medicaid reform and business incentive funding deals, costing hundreds of thousands more.

Currently the Senate’s Medicaid reform plan and NC Competes business incentive funding bill are sitting in the House awaiting a concurring vote, unless the House declines, at which point the bills will go into conference in an attempt to reach a deal.

The legislature is scheduled to meet again Monday.

$700 million gap in spending

Legislators have been working to bridge the $700 million gap between the two chambers’ budget plans, but state leaders say they are close to a deal.

The House’s $22.2 billion spending plan offers many more goodies than the Senate’s $21.47 billion proposed budget.

With a $700 million gap between the two budgets, a compromise was expected to take a lot of hashing out from the beginning, but now the session is extended into the school year, leaving school districts worried without a clear budget.

The Senate budget represents a 2 percent increase, but the House plan would mean a 5 percent increase in state General Fund spending.

Apart from the numerical differences, the Senate and House budgets paint very different pictures for the state.

The Senate budget fills the state’s saving coffers to over $1 billion, cuts personal and corporate income tax rates, and increases the standard deduction available to taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the House budget increases corporate incentive funding and funnels resources into more spending in other places as well.

Both spending plans include raises for starting teacher salaries to $35,000, fulfilling an earlier promise to work to attract more teachers to the state.

The Senate budget moves state wildlife resources – including its aquariums, state parks and zoo – under the Department of Cultural Resources, in line with McCrory’s plan, while the House budget did not.

The Senate budget appropriates an expected $400 million revenue surplus to the state’s savings accounts.

The House sees the surplus, and a generally improving economic climate, as a chance to spend more.

The Senate budget comes closest to the governor’s proposal, landing about $50 million under McCrory’s plan.

The House plan overshoots McCrory’s proposal by $630 million.

State taking precautions against shutdown

State Budget Director Lee Roberts spoke with ABC11 about the repercussions of a possible shutdown, and what plan the state has in place for such an occurrence.

“If it does, I think what happens is something like a state holiday,” Roberts said.

He has had state departments send in plans for how they would handle a shutdown though, in case it happens.

“We just wanted to make sure we were prepared. As we were coming up to the fiscal year, we realized that our plans could be a little better, a little more robust, when it comes to having good contingency plans in place in the event of a shutdown,” he said.

http://nccapitolconnection.com/2015/08/14/extended-session-may-cost-2m/