Clary Votes 'YES' for 99/00 Budget

House reaches budget accord
WADE RAWLINS, Staff Writer

After more than 12 hours of debate, the state House early today approved a $13.5 billion state spending plan, with provisions to fund teacher pay raises and several other education initiatives among its top priorities.

The vote on the budget, which contained few controversial policy issues, was 111-8. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Democrats and Republicans debated 40 amendments during a 12-hour-plus endurance test that went beyond midnight. They debated proposals that included putting seat belts in school buses, giving pay raises to legislators and increasing funding for poor schools.

Most of the amendments had nothing to do with the priorities set by House leaders who crafted the budget proposal.

The House's version of the budget continues Gov. Jim Hunt's top priorities: making the third installment on a four-year plan to raise teacher salaries to the national average by 2000 and providing $58 million to continue expanding the Smart Start preschool program to all 100 counties. It funds roughly 1,000 new school teaching positions, about half of those just to keep pace with enrollment increase.

"The emphasis has been on education and children," said Rep. Ruth Easterling, a Charlotte Democrat and co-chairwoman of the House Appropriations committee. "Of course, the two are intertwined. This budget has tried to address both of those issues as the focus point."

The spending plan includes new House initiatives such as added benefits for state employees, extended aid for people leaving welfare to take jobs and a slightly larger property tax break for elderly and disabled homeowners with incomes of $25,000 or less.

Despite warnings about a gaping budget hole, budget writers did not tap into money earmarked for the clean water trust fund or the state's reserves. They avoided that largely by putting off the issue of repaying $360 million in illegally collected intangibles taxes.

"I believe that our budget is responsible," said Rep. Thomas Hardaway, a Democrat from Enfield and co-chairman of Appropriations. "We have a spending increase of less than 5 percent over the current budget. This budget does not raise taxes."

The budget will go to the Senate for review. Then negotiators for the two chambers will reconcile differences between the two plans.

"It's a pretty responsible budget," said Dan Gerlach, director of the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, a left-leaning watchdog group. "It will be difficult for people to find a lot to complain about."

The budget does propose restoring an $8 million discretionary fund in Cultural Resources and $4 million fund in Human Resources, which are used to finance local organizations outside the normal administrative process. The General Assembly eliminated the funds last year after budget watchdogs criticized them as pork barrel accounts.

"Although the budget does include some good ideas -- such as raising tuitions and covering rising costs in the state employee health plan with existing retirement reserves, it also brings back a number of old, bad ideas such as $12 million in discretionary slush funds," said John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation.

The plan contains new spending for the state's community colleges, including a 5 percent faculty salary increase. But the plan also includes a $95 a semester community college tuition increase. It earmarks 40 percent of the additional tuition money to create the largest scholarship program for community college students in the state's history.

Also included is $14.5 million for $250,000 grants to each of the 58 community colleges for repairs and renovations for existing buildings. The institutions would also get $22 million for new technology and equipment.

For public schools, the House's budget funds teacher pay raises and the ABC bonuses as Hunt proposed and adds a new $1.1 million program to provide free breakfast for all kindergarten students.

Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the proposal, proposed extending free breakfasts through third grade, at a cost of $8 million. But House members voted down the proposal.

"I can't believe I'm standing here in North Carolina debating what must have come out of some John Lennon utopian dream," Rep. Sam Ellis, a Raleigh Republican, said of the proposal.

The budget contains a tuition increase of 4.9 percent for in-state undergraduates at state universities and a similar increase for out-of-state undergraduates. In-state graduate student tuition would increase 6.9 percent to 8.4 percent.

The budget includes $20 million for repair and renovations at university campuses, but it does not address the university system's considerable list of construction needs totaling $3 billion. House leaders indicated they will consider a separate bond issue this session to fund those needs.

The budget would provide $30 million in new funding for the historically black colleges and universities and UNC-Pembroke, which project 20 percent enrollment growth in the next four years. It would also fund repairs and renovations to buildings on those campuses.

The House approved an amendment by Rep. Dan Blue, a Raleigh Democrat, to take $1.5 million of the overhead receipts from research grants that were to be returned to N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to complete a science building at N.C. Central University.

Blue argued that the NCCU science building would generate revenue from contract research when it was equipped and staffed.

House members voted down an amendment by Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat, to take $20 million from the state's contribution to the UNC Hospital System's indigent care and use the money instead for additional improvements at historically black colleges and community colleges.

The budget would extend the time that people leaving the welfare rolls for work would receive transitional medicaid payments from 12 months to 24 months.

The proposed budget does not contain a salary increase for legislators. A proposal by Rep. Monroe Buchanan to give cost-of-living raises to legislators in the 2001-02 General Assembly failed overwhelmingly by a 89-18 vote.

"For many of us to vote for this amendment would be a poison pill," said Rep. Cary Allred, a Burlington Republican. "It would be political suicide."

But House members voted 68-46 to pass a proposal by Rep. Larry Justus, a Hendersonville Republican, to cut the appropriations of Legal Services of North Carolina and the Death Penalty Litigation Center by $175,000 each to provide grants to school systems for metal detectors.

"We should do everything in our power to ensure our schools don't become killing fields," Justus said.

And the House rejected a proposal by Ellis to give local board power to screen performances by artists who receive state grants.

"It is not a censorship," Ellis said. "It's a contract provision. If you don't want to be subjected to local zoning board, don't accept the grant, go perform it on your own in a privately funded facility."