15-04-2025
House Dems, advocates for transparency blast NC Senate's ‘broken' budget
Rep. Deb Butler and advocates call for a more transparent budget process as the Senate prepares to pass its budget blueprint. (Screengrab from NCGA video stream)
As the North Carolina Senate fast tracks a newly released two-year budget proposal through the chamber this week, members of the state's Progressive House Caucus held a press conference Tuesday to call out what they say is the lack of public input and accountability in the budgeting process.
Rep. Deb Butler (D-New Hanover) said the Senate budget that earmarks $32.6 billion in 2025-26 and $33.3 billion the year after was crafted with no collaboration from Democrats or real public input.
'[Billion of dollars] are rolled into a last-minute conference report, dumped on our desk, and shoved through with an up or down vote. That is not just a procedural complaint. It's a democratic crisis,' said Butler at a Tuesday legislative press conference.
Butler is advocating for two bills she sponsored earlier in the session to improve the budget process.
House Bill 178, the 'Budgeting Accountability and Transparency Act,' would require that any conference committee report (the document that spells out the final version of a bill that has been agreed to by House and Senate leaders) on the budget be publicly available for at least 72 hours before a vote can occur. It would give lawmakers, stakeholders and the public time to read the hundreds of pages that make up the budget bill.
House Bill 180, 'Fiscally Responsible & Sustainable Budgeting,' would require a multi-year look back and look forward based on performance rather than relying on one-time money. HB 180 also requires that any tax cut or spending increase over a certain threshold include an offset so future legislatures are not saddled with obligations the state cannot afford.
'These bills do not favor Democrats or Republicans. They favor the people of North Carolina who deserve to see how their money is being spent,' said Butler.
Rep. Marcia Morey (D-Durham) said legislative leaders would also be wise to embrace House Bill 303 ('Make Corporations Pay What They Owe') that would halt the ongoing gradual repeal of the corporate income tax.
'We don't need to cut the corporate income tax to zero by 2030. This state will lose $2 billion that can be used for our priorities of helping people, helping school children, the necessities we need to make the state stronger,' Morey urged. 'It must be reinstated so this state can be fiscally responsible.'
Alexandra Sirota of the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center cautioned that North Carolina is experiencing the ripple effects of federal funding chaos, program freezes, and a looming congressional budget that threatens to push even more costs onto the states.
'Unless our legislative leaders change course, we know that North Carolina's future budget picture will get worse, not better. We cannot afford to trust empty promises,' Sirota warned.
Charles Owens, a healthcare technician at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro, said that with rising housing costs and living expenses, state workers deserve better than the meager increases being put forth in the budget proposal unveiled by Senate leaders Monday night.
'The workers at Cherry Hospital, along with all the other DHHS facilities, work with the most vulnerable, exploited, and sometimes the most dangerous people in North Carolina, meaning the mentally ill, the abused, and sometimes criminals shipped to us from the prisons,' Owens explained. 'We take care of them with some of the best treatment this state can offer. But yet, as public workers, we aren't being taken care of by our lawmakers.'
Most state workers would see a 1.25% raise next year, as well as a $3,000 bonus over the next two years in the Senate proposal.
Owens said that as budget writers advance another round of corporate tax cuts, state employees are being told to expect to pay higher costs for participating in the State Health Plan next year.
'Imagine public workers that provide health care, being told that the state can afford tax cuts, but they can't afford to continue making investments in our health.'
Sam Stites, the living wage program coordinator with the group Just Economics, traveled to Raleigh from Transylvania County on Tuesday to urge lawmakers to craft a better budget.
Stites said for western North Carolina it's been a year of rude awakenings since Helene, with relief dollars slow to materialize for many working-class individuals.
'Wealthy individuals and corporations should not be getting tax cuts when working western North Carolinians are being evicted and small businesses are shuttering. That is why I came here.'
Stites said in addition to rebuilding infrastructure, lawmakers need to help the hundreds of Helene survivors who are facing eviction.
'I'm talking about the $10 million you were asked for in rental assistance and said 'no' to, and the small business grants that you were asked for and aid 'No' to,' said Stites. 'To me it is simple, if you do not have enough money for working people and small businesses, then you do not have enough money for tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations.'
Abby Lublin, executive director of Carolina Jews for Justice, said the state budget is truly a statement about North Carolina's values.
'Cutting the corporate income tax does not fill a child's stomach. It doesn't raise teacher pay. It doesn't heal our rural hospitals or fix our crumbling roads.'
Lublin said simply pausing the corporate tax rate at its current level would provide revenue for services that are desperately needed at a time of sweeping federal cuts.
'To the lawmakers who are enacting a budget process without transparency, I'm looking right at you,' said Lublin. 'A budget that pits people and communities against each other to fight for crumbs is only due to a lack of moral courage.'
The Senate is expected to have floor votes on the budget Wednesday and Thursday.
