RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — The North Carolina General Assembly finished up their chief working session Thursday, achieving a handful of their goals but failing to pass a budget adjustment and fund private school vouchers.
The legislature, which has been in session since April 24, was expected to wrap quickly before the two chambers were unable to come to an agreement on budget adjustments. The assembly passed a two-year budget last fall, but lawmakers wanted to pass additional funding to prevent closures in the child care industry and clear a backlist of applicants for private school vouchers.
The legislature overrode three of Democrat Governor Roy Cooper’s vetoes this week, passing mask restrictions, allowing more trees to be cut down for billboards and making changes to the juvenile justice system. Votes to override Cooper’s vetoes fell largely among party lines, with the Republican majority continuing in their pattern of overriding the Democratic governor, as both bodies have a veto-proof Republican majority. In 2023, Cooper vetoed 19 different bills, and Republicans proceeded to override him and pass each one into law.
Legislators successfully passed several measures in marathon sessions this week, including $67.5 million in stabilization grants for the child care industry, which was expected to suffer after federal funding runs out at the end of the month. Nearly a third of child care centers were expected to close, and lawmakers were under pressure from the public to act, with protesters demanding funding arrested in front of the Senate Wednesday. The funding is far less than lawmakers wanted to pass in their dueling budget proposals, where both bodies agreed to fund about 75% of the federal funding the industry was receiving before, or roughly $135 million. The funds are intended to last 6 months and tide the industry over until legislators return for their long session in January. The measure had overwhelming bipartisan support and passed the House unanimously, with only one vote in opposition in the Senate.
In their final week, lawmakers passed a bill changing the wording in the state constitution to enshrine citizen voting, a move Democrats called unnecessary as citizenship is constitutionally required to vote in North Carolina. They also passed a measure modernizing sex crimes, making it a crime to extort someone with private images and videos, including content created or altered by AI, and authorized the teacher raises that they passed in last year’s budget, which wouldn’t otherwise automatically go into effect.
But they failed to resolve a big ticket item for Republicans: private school vouchers, called opportunity scholarships. Both bodies agreed that it was a priority to pass funding to reduce a waitlist of applicants after demand for the program was drastically higher than expected, but no budget adjustment was passed and the House failed to take up a funding proposal sent to them by the Senate.
Speaker Tim Moore called it impossible to pass voucher funding before the end of session, saying the governor had indicated he would veto the measure and the legislature didn’t have the time to turn it around before the end of their work session. Once the House and Senate reach an agreement, they plan to retroactively provide funding for families who enrolled their children in private and religious schools, Moore said.
They also did not provide additional raises for public school teachers and state employees, which the House was invested in doing. The Senate wanted to maintain raises at the same rate as was passed last year, a 3% increase for teachers, while representatives in the House wanted to increase pay to 4%. But no additional funding for raises was passed.
This session it was the House’s responsibility to draft a budget adjustment, which it did, but it was unable to compromise with the Senate over how much to spend. The chambers failed to concur over a $523.8 million difference in gross spending, with the Senate scolding the House for spending money on pork expenditures. The Senate proposed their own budget with very closely aligned priorities, but the House refused to take up. The state still has funding for the next fiscal year from their over $30 billion budget passed in 2023, but a budget adjustment would have allocated surplus money.
Despite not passing a budget or allocating funding for opportunity scholarships, Moore said he would call the session a success.
“There's so much good legislation that members on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers can go back to their districts and show that they've really produced a lot of good policy for North Carolina,” he said. “The investment in the infrastructure, roads, broadband, water and sewer means a lot of things that are happening that are great, and I'm really proud to serve with all of these members and to serve as a speaker of this body.”
In their adjournment resolution, lawmakers agreed to meet several more times before the end of the year to focus on veto overrides, filling position vacancies and adopting conference reports. They are next expected to meet July 10.
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