Budget, Budget, Wherefore Art Thou Budget?

State government will likely go into the fall without a new state budget providing employee raises and laying out major projects the state will undertake over the next two years, a key Senate leader said this week. And that's if top state leaders come to an agreement at all. "We’re still having conversations," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger told reporters Wednesday afternoon. "I think we’ve narrowed down the items we need to agree to in order to start, in earnest, hammering out some final provisions in the budget."

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“Moore” About the Budget

The band Earth, Wind & Fire has a song about remembering the 21st night of September. Will that be the day that the North Carolina General Assembly passes its state budget? Unlikely. More like Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters on Wednesday evening that he does not expect the legislature’s compromise budget, called the conference budget, to be done before the end of September. House Speaker Tim Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican, has said that it would be mid-September. Berger is not even that optimistic. 

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Executive Actions

NC Governor Roy Cooper has had a busy week. He signed 18 bills sent over from the legislature into law – he vetoed two. He extended statewide standing orders for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations and deployed NC National Guard units to Louisiana to assist with relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ida. And, in recognition of exciting developments in North Carolina’s golf industry, Governor Cooper declared Tuesday, August 31st, as “North Carolina Golf Day.” Access to the Governor’s press announcements on each of these executive actions can be found at the link below.

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