North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory last week signed his state’s $21.735 billion budget, which supports his stated agenda of bolstering education, improving skills for young drivers and improving services for the mentally ill.
While also saving taxes for North Carolinians to the tune of $4.4 billion per year, the budget includes provisions for fully funding teacher assistant positions, increasing the beginning pay for teachers to $35,000 a year, fully funding programs for driver education and implementation of mental health services and support.
“The budget submitted to me by the General Assembly includes many of the goals and ideas we put forward to provide the tools North Carolina needs to continue what we have accomplished during the past three years,” McCrory said. “Now we can work together to implement a common-sense vision for our great state that includes job creation, education, health care and transportation.”
Other education-related highlights of the budget include: providing for in-state tuition for veterans; funding the School Connectivity Initiative to bring broadband access to all K-12 schools in the state; stabilizing funding for East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine; funding improvements to community colleges across the state; investing in additional textbooks and digital resources; and funding summer enrollment for community colleges.
State infrastructure highlights include eliminating transfers from the North Carolina Highway Fund to the General Fund to ensure that the money is spent on roads and infrastructure and investing in port modernization.
In addition to providing increased funding for the state’s court system, the budget also funds mental health beds at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., additional crime lab positions and testing and the Innovation to Jobs initiative.
The budget also restores Historic Tax Credits and the medical tax deduction, provides funds to improve the State Medical Examiner system and electronic records, increases the state rainy day fund to $1 billion and improves the salary plan for corrections officers based on risk.
In an effort to improve government efficiency, the budget creates a new Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, and a new Department of Information and Technology and provides for the reorganization of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality by consolidating the management of all state parks and attractions under one agency.
“I look forward to working with the General Assembly to implement these programs to make North Carolina an even better place to live and work, and build the economic foundation for the next generation,” McCrory concluded.