Quiet? Not on the 6th floor
If one were to have wandered off Jones Street into the General Assembly building today, it would have looked like not much was going on. Yes, there were House and Senate sessions, but they were held only to comply with constitutional requirements as to how often the chambers need to meet while in session.
But if you found your way out back to the Legislative Office Building and head up to the sixth floor, there you would find legislators and their staff grinding through the state budget. Yes, the budget was due on July 1, but the honorables granted themselves an extension until the end of the month.
After last week's fracas with Medicaid and the transfer tax, the honorables in charge of budgeting have decided to move on to other matters and let that whole controversial can of worms sit for a bit.
I was up there for a bit watching them hash through some things today. The core team in the room for the Senate was comprised of Sens. Kay Hagan, Walter Dalton and Linda Garrou, the three appropriations committee chairs, along with Sen. Tony Rand, majority leader and policy poobah. The House members had their appropriations chairs backed by Rules Chairman Bill Owens and Majority Leader Hugh Holliman. (Various lobbyists and staffers from the governors office were lurking out in the halls or poking their heads in the room, depending on the topic at hand. I even saw freshman Republican Rep. Joe Boylan listen in for a while.)
At least during the times I was in there, I didn't see any finance folks, but that's not all that unusual for this sort of session that was concentrating on how to spend money rather than to raise it.
The big news, at least among the conferees, seemed to be they had reached an agreement on salaries:
- Rank and file state employees would get a 4 percent raise.
- Public school teachers, community college faculty and university system faculty would get a 5 percent raise
- State retirees would get a 2.2 cost-of-living raise.
More after the jump.
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Beyond the fact it's important to the folks in those professions, the reason the salary question getting settled is big news is that it represents a big ol' chunk of money. Coming to an agreement on that helps set the parameters for what can be spent elsewhere, and settles what sometimes can be a point of contention between the two chambers.
Decisions like the one on salaries as well as the tussle over taxes and Medicaid are the exception. They are big, thematic and pit competing philosophies of governance against one another.
Most appropriations decisions are smaller - not unimportant but not as sweeping. Yes, a million here and a million there and you're talking about real money, but it's not the same as moving $350 in revenues or expenses at a shot.
There are dozens (probably a couple hundred, were I to guess) of smaller items where the chambers haven't come to an agreement yet. And they, too, need to be put to rest before a final budget is done.
One example, and it's a local (to Guilford County) one: The House and Senate apportioned funding for the High Point (Furniture) Market differently. The House budget would have given $1 million to the Department of Commerce to promote the marketing of the state's furniture industry. The Senate budget would have given that money directly to the International Home Furnishing Market Authority, a High Point nonprofit that runs the annual trade show.
You can't do both, so the honorables have to decide whether to take the House "position," the Senate position or some compromise.
In this particular case, Owens spoke up to say, "The furniture market out in Las Vegas is starting to clean North Carolina's clock." The High Point Market needed the help directly. After a little more discussion, the Senate position was adopted. Assuming nothing odd happens, that's the way it'll be when the final budget comes out.
That process of little five minute negotiating sessions happens over and over again during the day, and that's how the small(er) differences get hashed out.
The bigger disagreements are being reserved for later. Usually there comes a time when the negotiating room closes as the last few drips and drabs get hashed out. And, if history is a guide, eventually there will come a point when the big dogs in either side (Speaker Hackney and President Pro Tempore Basnight) will be called in to settle the final disagreements and give their blessings to the whole shmear. But we appear to be a ways off from that stage of things.
Comments (1)
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Thanks Mark. That was a really good insight into the process and current status of the budget.
The whole issue of appropriations to non-profits while State agencies go begging is one worth exploring. "Non-profit" does not automatically mean needy. The parent entities of the largest PACs are "non-profits".
Posted on July 5, 2007 9:42 PM