State lawmakers likely have a long road ahead of them in forging a compromise version of the competing budgets approved by the N.C. House and Senate.
The differences between the two-year spending plans are substantial. The $22.2 million House plan spends $700 million more than the Senate budget, which sets aside $400 million more than what the House does for state reserve funds.
Lawmakers will have to bridge a gulf on state employee salaries and transportation funding. The House budget provides an across-the-board 2 percent raise for most workers, but the Senate’s plan doesn’t. The Senate seeks to end the annual transfer of $216 million from the Highway Fund to the general fund, while the House aims to increase the transfer by almost $5 million.
Finding common ground on these vast funding differences will seem like a simple job compared to negotiations over the array of policy changes included in the Senate budget bill, many of which face staunch opposition in the House and from Gov. Pat McCrory.
The Senate measure reduces individual and corporate income tax rates, lowers the business franchise tax, increases the value of standard deductions, expands the sales tax to include more services and changes the formula for sales tax distributions to counties.
The Senate plan also includes a Medicaid reform package that ends the current fee-for-service payment system that would be run by managed care companies instead of doctors and hospital networks, which is preferred by the House. The Senate also removes the Medicaid program from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and puts it into a separate “Health Benefits Authority” run by an eight-member board – an idea the House doesn’t like and one McCrory said might be unconstitutional.
Lawmakers certainly have their work cut out for them. They won’t be coming home any time soon.
http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/opinion/our-views/don8217t-expect-quick-deal-state-budget-2915487
