Long legislative session fails to produce state budget

After the longest legislative session in almost two decades, lawmakers left Raleigh on Thursday and left state government without a new budget.

Posted 11:28 p.m. Nov 1, 2019 — Updated 11:28 p.m. Nov 1, 2019

Laura Leslie

, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief, & Cullen Browder, WRAL anchor/reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — After the longest legislative session in almost two decades, lawmakers left Raleigh on Thursday and left state government without a new budget.

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the $24 billion spending plan lawmakers passed in June, and a stalemate over tax cuts, Medicaid expansion and the size of teacher raises dragged on over the following four months.

Although Republicans in the House were able to override Cooper's veto during a September floor session that most House Democrats missed because they didn't think there would be any votes taken, Senate Republicans weren't able to get the numbers to work in their favor for an override, so they never tried.

This marks the first time the General Assembly has adjourned its session without enacting a new budget. That's only possible because of legislation passed a few years ago that allows government to continue operating off the existing budget if no new spending plan is in place.

"It’s unfortunate that the General Assembly left town passing a sweeping corporate tax cut while leaving teachers with a pay raise much less than other state employees," Cooper said Friday.

During the budget impasse, lawmakers passed a series of so-called "mini-budgets" to get new money to various agencies and programs. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said Thursday that the various measures account for 98.5 percent of what was in the vetoed budget.

Although Cooper complained about the piecemeal process, he has signed many of the proposals into law. The teacher pay raise bill cleared the legislature Thursday, but Cooper wouldn't say Friday whether he would sign it or veto it to force more negotiations.

"They'll be coming back in a few weeks," he said of lawmakers, "and we're hoping that we can find a way to resolve this and give teachers the pay that they deserve."

Lawmakers are set to return on Nov. 13 to focus on congressional redistricting – a state court ruled this week that the current map of the state's 13 U.S. House districts cannot be used in the 2020 elections – and to adopt any bills on which House and Senate negotiators are working out compromises.

A compromise budget is unlikely in the coming weeks, as Republican legislative leaders remain firmly opposed to Cooper's push to include expanding health coverage to hundreds of thousands of North Carolina's working poor in a final spending plan.

The legislature will return again on Jan. 14, when the Senate could take up an override of the budget veto, as well as other issues left hanging after this week's adjournment.

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