Agencies funded despite state's budget impasse

    Andrews – State Rep. Kevin Corbin (R-Franklin) visited town lawmakers last week to share an update on the state budget and provide the town with a new flag.
    North Carolina entered the 2019-20 fiscal year without a new state budget in place. Due to a previously enacted law, agencies are still receiving recurring funds at last year’s spending amounts. However, one-time expenditures, new initiatives and some pay raises for public employees have not been funded.
    Although state lawmakers passed a budget, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed it.
    “He said unless you put Medicaid expansion in it, I’m going to veto the budget,” Corbin told Andrews lawmakers at the meeting Thursday. “We passed individual bills to get around that roadblock.”
    On Aug. 30, Cooper signed separate bills that increased pay for some state employees and N.C. Highway Patrol officers. But he vetoed a House bill that would have funded the implementation of Medicaid transformation.
    “Passing mini-funding bills that simply divvy up the vetoed Republican budget is a tactic to avoid a comprehensive budget that provides for health care and other important needs like education,” Cooper said in announcing the veto.
    “Health care is an area where North Carolina needs us to do more, and to do it comprehensively.”
    Lawmakers are expected to address teacher raises via a separate bill in the near future. Raises for all state employees are retroactive to July 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.
    State lawmakers have also introduced a new bill that offers an alternative to Medicaid expansion. Corbin is a co-sponsor of the legislation.