GOP delivers a tight budget

Editorial from Winston-Salem Journal, July 22, 2013.

The compromise state budget released Sunday night and almost certain to be approved by the House and Senate this week moves North Carolina spending policy fully into the ideological homeland of the Republican legislators who designed it.

The $20.6 billion spending plan for this fiscal year – legislators went a few weeks past the July 1 start of FY 2014 – represents 2- percent growth over this year, but is still well below inflation- and population-adjusted state budget levels of just a few years ago.

Republican leaders call it fiscally responsible and incorporate their tax changes into revenue forecasts. The biennium budget will have $524 million less to spend because of revenue cuts. In future years, even deeper reductions in potential revenue result from the tax plan.

Public education is affected in a number of places. Teachers will go at least another year without a raise, and Senate leader Phil Berger’s plan to end teacher tenure is incorporated into the budget. State teacher pay was among the lowest in the nation this year.

The budget also cuts $120 million from the budget for teachers’ aides, eliminating 21 percent of those jobs.

In lieu of a raise – teachers have had one 1.2-percent raise in the last five years now – teachers will become eligible for a $23.6 million merit-pay system based on performance reviews. The budget also includes a $10 million fund to help low-income students pay for private education.

Five years after the devastation of the Great Recession, legislators continue to rebuild the state’s reserves, providing an extra $230 million for the Rainy Day Fund, bringing its projected 2015 balance above $600 million.

But all in all, the GOP, as expected, has delivered a tight budget.