House Budget

Excerpt: June 2008 From the Ground Up Newsletter
http://www.ncjustice.org/

2008 Legislative Session Moving Full Speed Ahead!

Last week, the NC House approved its budget proposal. The $21.3 billion budget included $11 billion for total education spending, $7.7 billion of which would go for K-12 public education. The House included a 3% salary increase for teachers and administrators and a salary increase of 2.75% or $1100, whichever is greater, for all other state employees. Other items worth noting in the House budget include:

K-12 Public Education
· $15 million in one-time money for dropout prevention grants
· $70 million in ABC bonus funds
· $6.2 million more for children with disabilities
· $3.2 million more for academically gifted students
· $3.4 million to expand Learn and Earn high school programs
· $45 million for diesel fuel costs for school buses
· $23 million to expand More at Four by 4,200 slots
· $6 million more for the Disadvantaged Student Supplemental Fund (DSSF)
· $2.9 million more for the Low-Wealth Supplemental Fund
· $500,000 for Communities in Schools' at-risk youth programs
· $1 million expansion for Juvenile Crime Prevention Council (JCPC)
· $10 million for gang prevention and intervention.

The budget will now go to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittees, which will make adjustments to the House budget. Then the full Senate Appropriations Committee will vote on the Senate version. If there are items up for debate, a Conference Committee made up of House and Senate members will create a final version, which the two bodies will adopt and send to the governor to be signed or vetoed. Senate members have already expressed their intentions of increasing the pay raise for teachers and funding for the Disadvantaged Student Supplemental Fund (DSSF).

The General Assembly has a proposed deadline of early July to finalize the budget and wrap up the entire 2008 session.