First-term Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, said he thinks this has been "a really good start to our budget process this year" and that the vote showed Democratic unity.
RALEIGH -- The state House gave its final approval early Friday to a two-year budget proposal that spends hundreds of millions of additional dollars to educate North Carolina schoolchildren and college students and continues a building spree started last year.
Similar to a party-line vote Thursday night to give its initial OK, the House voted 67-50 shortly after midnight for the budget bill penned by Democrats that recommends spending $20.3 billion for the fiscal year starting July 1. It also moves teacher salaries toward the national average and gives most state employees higher raises than Gov. Mike Easley sought in his budget request.
Lawmakers proposed a budget that spends 7.6 percent more than this year with help from more than $1.1 billion in unexpected revenues and a decision by Democrats to extend two "temporary" taxes for another two years. The bill also brings the state's rainy-day reserve fund to more than $900 million to prepare for the next disaster.
"All in all, I think it is a really good start to our budget process this year," first-term Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, said after the initial vote. "I was very pleased with our Democratic unity. We worked real hard to achieve that."
The bill left much to be desired for Republicans and mental health reform advocates, as well as individual lawmakers who had hoped for more money for local projects to help constituents.
"Not everything is exactly like everybody would like it," Rep. Maggie Jeffus, D-Guilford and one of the House's chief budget-writers, said at the beginning of Thursday's six hours of debate. "But we've done a good job trying to spread things around."
Republicans complained budget growth outpaced population and inflation increases and doesn't follow through on past promises to end the two taxes.
"How can we even use the word temporary any more?" said Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford. "We need to restore our credibility, we should have met our word."
With Democrats holding their largest majority in the chamber since 1994 _ the budget won passage on separate days to meet constitutional requirements of approving a budget bill. The Senate now will approve their own spending plan in the coming weeks, one that likely will let the temporary taxes expire as scheduled. The two chambers hope to get a final compromise to Easley before the new fiscal year begins.
The chamber heard more than 25 amendments during Thursday's debate, rejecting among other things an attempt to eliminate free university tuition for students who have attended the N.C. School of Science and Math in Durham.
House members agreed unanimously to give another $40 million to the counties to help them with the costs of Medicaid, raising next year's total to $100 million. County commissioners statewide have said their top priority for the Legislature is to eliminate their share of patient medical expenses, expected to surpass $500 million next year.
Easley criticized House Democrats for declining to adjust the lottery distribution formula to give tens of millions more to his More at Four pre-kindergarten program.
The House did include some of Easley's education programs, such as a college grant program that could help low-income students get a public university degree without going into debt. But the spending was half of what Easley sought.
House Democrats said they had their own education priorities, including $7 million in dropout prevention grants to local school districts and millions more to pay for programs supporting academically gifted children and students with disabilities.
The $11 billion in education spending is a "considerable investment in the future of our state and our young people," said House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson.
Democrats declined to finish phasing out a sales tax and individual income tax increase first approved in 2001, saying the extra nearly $300 million that will be collected are needed to keep the state fiscally sound while meeting education and health care priorities.
The General Assembly last year reduced the taxes slightly and GOP members said the state should complete the job this year. Most consumers would remain paying a 6.75 percent sales tax and the highest wage earners would be subject to an 8 percent income tax rate. The House voted along party lines in a procedural vote to reject a GOP attempt to remove both taxes by the end of 2008.
House Democrats highlighted tax breaks for businesses and a new earned-income tax credit that would benefit 825,000 poor taxpayers.
Salaries would grow by 4.25 percent for most state employees and university workers while public school teachers, community college faculty and judges would get 5 percent pay raises.
The bill also spends $170 million to pay for university and state building projects and borrows $449 million for other projects without statewide voter approval. Lawmakers approved similar construction spending last year.
Hackney tried to keep special appropriations earmarked for local projects to a minimum and largely avoided special provisions -- portions of the budget bill that make significant policy changes.
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