New Budget, Same Missed Opportunities for North Carolina

Lawmakers Continue to Choose Austerity and Failed Trickle-Down Economics Over Broadly Shared Prosperity

Lawmakers have passed a new state budget that will serve as a roadmap for how North Carolina will operate for the next two years — unfortunately, this roadmap has numerous potholes and an unclear destination. It does not reflect the spending decisions that can drive better economic outcomes or strengthen the connection to opportunity for every community across the state.

Despite a veto of the budget by Gov. Cooper, House and Senate leadership garnered the needed votes to override the veto and approve the budget. Overall spending for the 2018 fiscal year (FY18) — which runs from July 2017 through June 2018 — is a 3.1 percent increase over the prior fiscal year. While this figure is slightly above the arbitrary formula of population plus inflation — which budget writers have used as a flawed guide for determining spending targets — it is insufficient to keep up with the growing cost of delivering public services to the state’s growing population and to make up for ground lost during the Great Recession.