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Other stories below:
Senate again
pushes session limits legislation
Senate
panel hears complaints about redistricting plan
Big
concerns about state's bond rating buried in routine bill
Dispute
over continuing resolution
nearly leads to government shutdown
Hours
before a midnight deadline, the House and Senate reached a
compromise Wednesday on how to continue running state
government without a budget in place. The brush with a
government shutdown was so close that state officials already
had begun the process of determining which agencies and
government functions to close when legislative leaders ironed
out the final details on what is now the third stopgap
spending measure since the new fiscal year began.
The Senate wanted to go ahead and fund Gov. Mike Easley’s
educational initiatives, including the “More At Four”
preschool program and other programs. Many House members
thought that such new programs should be decided in the
budget, not a continuing resolution. The Senate also wanted to
generate $40 million in new revenue for the UNC System through
a 9 percent tuition increase on both in-state and out-of-state
students. Many in the House wanted to shift the entire burden
to out-of-state students. As the debate continued, the clock
ticked down on the midnight expiration of the previous
continuing resolution.
The compromise, reached around 9 p.m., appropriates $12
million to hire enough additional teachers to reduce
kindergarten classes to 19 and $8 million to reduce the
average class size in kindergarten through third grade at the
state’s 37 worst elementary schools – those where more
than 80 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price
meals and more than 45 percent of students test below grade
level.
It increases UNC System tuition for the current year by 9
percent and by $3.50 per credit hours at the community
colleges. The stopgap spending plan will expire at midnight on
Sept. 28. If a state budget isn’t in place by then, the
whole exercise will have to be repeated again.
Senate
again pushes session limits
The
2001 session of the General Assembly, which convened on Jan.
24, officially became the longest in state history Saturday,
topping the previous record set in 1989. To Sen. David Hoyle
(D-Gaston), it seemed an appropriate time to again focus on
the topic of session limits.
He made his move Tuesday when the Senate Judiciary I Committee
took up a House-passed bill intended to reduce the length of
sessions by getting an earlier start on organizing the
chambers. H. 280 Convene Sessions Earlier, sponsored by
Rep. David Redwine (D-Brunswick), would have the legislature
convene for a few days shortly after the fall elections for
the sole purpose of electing House and Senate leaders. The
session would then adjourn while the newly elected or
re-elected House and Senate leaders appointed committee chairs
and assigned office space. The session would then reconvene in
mid-January, as usual, and would be ready to begin working.
Most legislators sit on their thumbs during those first weeks
of the long sessions.
At Hoyle’s urging, the Senate favorably reported the House
bill after amending it to include sessions limits language
that the Gastonia Democrat has advocated for several years
now. The amended bill then cleared the Senate by a 41-1 vote
on Thursday and went to the House.
The measure calls for a referendum on amending the state
constitution to limit the length of long sessions -- those
held in odd-numbered years when the legislature writes a
two-year budget -- to 135 calendar days. Sessions held in
even-numbered years, which supposedly are limited to
fine-tuning the second-year of the biennial budget, would be
limited to 60 days. The measure is similar to a session-limits
bill sponsored by Hoyle that the Senate passed in April that
has been gathering dust in the House. That bill also four-year
terms for legislators.
NCCBI has been vocal in its support for session limits and
applauded Hoyle, who is a member of the association, for his
continuing advocacy for the issue. North Carolina is one of
just 11 states that doesn’t have either a constitutional or
statutory limit on how long the legislature can remain in
session.
Senate
panel hears complaints about redistricting plan
Citizens
who showed up at a public hearing to comment on a proposed
redistricting plan for state Senate districts mostly
complained that the plan splits too many counties and towns.
At present 48 counties are split into different Senate
districts; that rises to 51 in the Senate committee’s
proposed redistricting plan, which was officially unveiled at
a Monday public hearing held by the Senate Redistricting
Committee. Moreover, a few of those 51 counties are chopped up
into five Senate districts. The Senate plan is one of three
redistricting proposals that lawmakers will have to approve
before adjourning this year. Redistricting plans for the House
and the state's congressional districts have yet to emerge
from the General Assembly.
Big
concerns about state’s credit rating buried in routine bond
bill
Action
on a fairly routine bill on how the state wants to distribute
the remainder of the $800 million clean water bonds approved
by voters three years ago highlights the continuing concerns
over North Carolina’s Triple A credit rating. The House and
Senate this week agreed to change the distribution formula for
the bonds to shift more of the money toward outright grants to
local governments, instead of loans that have to be repaid.
However, S. 247 Reallocate Clean Water Bonds/Defer Bond
Issue contains language postponing issuing any further
bonds until next January. Many towns and counties that have
started water and sewer projects in anticipation of receiving
help from the bond issue will have to wait another three
months to get any money.
Why? If North Carolina issued any bonds now – before the
state has solved its budget crisis – it’s very likely the
New York credit ratings agencies would rate them at something
less than Triple A. And once the state had that stain on its
credit history, it might be difficult to restore its sterling
reputation. It’s better not to temp fate, a knowledgeable
government official told us.
S. 247 authorizes payments to local governments or to match
federal funds that would have been made from bond proceeds at
the discretion of the budget director not to exceed $50
million. The measure changes the reallocation amounts as
follows. Water projects: loans to local governments with bond
rating of less than 75, from $5,100,000 to $340,000; loans to
local governments with bond rating of 75 or more, from
$27,402,114 to $28,483,251; reallocation for unsewered
community grants, from $37,451,955 to $35,612,523;
reallocation for supplemental grants, from $21,500,000 to
$35,612,523.
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