Senate priorities for short session: Balanced budget, cut taxes, increase teacher pay

[caption id="attachment_3452" align="alignleft" width="150"] Senator Phil Berger[/caption]

by Matt Caulder, Capitol Connection, April 21, 2016.

Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) met with journalists Wednesday afternoon to announce the Senate’s priorities for the coming Short Session, set to begin Monday.

Berger said that the Senate will focus on passing a balanced budget, more tax changes to let people keep more of what they earn and increasing teacher pay.

Berger also said that he hopes that the Short Session will be true to its name and wrap up quickly.

Budget

“The main thing that we will be working on during the Short Session is the budget and our principal order of business during the Short Session is making modifications to and passing another balanced budget that funds North Carolina’s key priorities while continuing go make state government smarter and more efficient,” Berger said. “The Senate is committed to protecting our hard working taxpayers and passing a responsible budget. And that responsible budget in our view would increase spending in North Carolina by approximately 2 percent.”

The current budget represents a 3.1 percent increase over the previous year, or an increase of $630 million over last year.

Tax reform

“Another area where we will continue to focus on is tax reform,” Berger said. “There’s one thing you should remember about the changes legislative Republicans have made to North Carolina’s tax codes over the past five years, it is that the vast majority of North Carolinians are keeping more of their own money. More of their tax dollars are staying in their pockets.

“That means that while we have broadened the base to keep up with our changing economy, we have cut personal income taxes, we have cut sales taxes, those cuts have impacted all North Carolinians at all income levels. In fact tax reforms enacted by the Legislature cut taxes by close to $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2015-16 compared to when Democrats last controlled state government in 2010.

“During this Short Session we will look for additional ways to reduce the tax burden on our hard working middle class. It’s no secret that House and Senate members on the revenue laws committee have been reviewing proposals on raising the amount of tax-free income to $17,500 for married couple filing jointly, currently that number is $15,000. That is something that I hope will be accomplished during this Short Session. “

Teacher pay

“Teacher pay is another thing that will be a focus this year, legislative Republicans have taken many steps to attract and retain and to reward North Carolina’s public school teachers,” Berger said. “We worked with Gov. McCrory to budget $282 million, the single largest appropriation for teacher pay raises in state history in 2014, to provide teachers an average 7 percent raise at that time. And in 2015 we raised entry-level teacher pay to $35,000 and provided experienced based step increases to teachers, principals and assistant principals.

“Senate Republicans are committed to passing an additional teacher pay raise this year. While we will work on the details during this year’s budget process I think Gov. (Pat) McCrory has actually set the right marker for us to have a goal of getting average teacher pay to $50,000. It’s a goal that we will start working on during this short session.”

Regulatory reform

Berger said that the state will focus on removing red tape in state regulations to open up more jobs to the workforce for entry level positions.

One such proposal getting a lot of attention is a draft bill to dissolve 15 occupational licensing boards in the state and consolidate the duties of 10 more under other existing boards.

“Regulatory reform has been another focus of Republican legislative efforts over the past five years,” Berger said. “We will renew our efforts to reduce regulatory burdens that misdirect time and energy to red tape and bureaucracy and away from growing businesses and getting people back to work. We have up to this point passed 5 regulatory reform bills over the past five years and I anticipate we will do even more to simplify outdated job killing rules and regulations during the Short Session.”

Sanctuary cities

“Last year we prohibited sanctuary cities in North Carolina to ensure localities enforce federal laws against illegal immigration,” Berger said. “This year we will work on the penalties for those who choose not to follow that law.”

State leaders passed HB318 last year, which expanded use of the E-verify legal status verification database for employment, installed E-verify requirements for state labor contracts, declared that consulate documents are not an acceptable form of identification in the state to prove residency, and also banned “sanctuary city” policies in the state such as those that were in place in Asheville, Chapel Hill and Durham at the time of the bill’s passing.

HB2: No repeal coming from the Senate

Berger also addressed the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, referred to as HB2, which has remained pervasive in the news in the weeks after its passing.

“Finally I want to address the issue I know many of you want to talk about, the bathroom safety bill,” Berger said. “There have been a lot of claims made about what this law does, and why the General Assembly passed it. And its unfortunate that many are relying on the spin of far-left special interest groups instead of the facts.

“To clarify here is what the law does. First, it ensures that elementary, middle and high school children do not have to share bathrooms, showers and locker rooms with the opposite sex. The bill still allows schools to reasonably accommodate individual students’ needs with single occupancy bathrooms and locker rooms.

“Next, it applies the same common sense rule to public buildings throughout North Carolina. It gives private businesses the freedom to make their own decisions regarding how to set up bathrooms and locker rooms, this means local governments cannot mandate that businesses accept men into women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

“Next for the first time, for the first time in North Carolina, the law implements a statewide anti-discrimination policy in public accommodations, stronger than what the federal law is. In most places in our state it essentially preserves what was the previous status quo.

“Next it allows private business, public employers and churches the ability to adopt their own non-discrimination policies that can be even stronger than federal law. I believe there was an announcement today that Target has actually taken advantage of that reasonable provision of the law to make an announcement in reference to their bathroom policy. Private employers and private businesses shouldn’t have the government telling it what it should do.

“And finally it helps prevent future situations like Charlotte’s overreaching ordinance by creating statewide consistency for laws relating to employment and public accommodation.”

Berger made clear that he has no intention of repealing HB2 in the coming session despite the tide of outcry from out-of-state and in-state policy groups and the wave of entertainers cancelling shows in the state in protest.

“Let me be clear, my job is not to give in to the demands of multi-millionaire celebrities pushing a pet social agenda, liberal newspapers like the New York Times, big corporations who have every freedom to set whatever policies they wish under this law,” he said. “My job is to listen to the people who elected us to represent them, and the vast majority of North Carolinians we’ve heard from understand and support this reasonable common sense law. I can only speak for myself here but no, I do not support repealing the bathroom safety bill.”

http://nccapitolconnection.com/2016/04/21/senate-priorities-for-short-session-balanced-budget-cut-taxes-increase-teacher-pay/