OPINION: Sen. Rabon on why legislature should override budget veto

Last week Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the budget passed by the General Assembly, calling it “a bad budget.”

This inflammatory political rhetoric is nothing new from Governor Cooper and he made similar claims when he vetoed budgets produced by legislative Republican majorities last year and the year before that.

Thankfully for the citizens of North Carolina, the Governor’s vetoes in 2017 and 2018 were largely symbolic. In an attempt to appeal to his far-left base, Cooper vetoed those budgets to highlight his refusal to work together with legislative Republicans. There was never any chance that those vetoes would be upheld as Republicans held supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature.

All the good things those budgets did for the state, like tax cuts for working families, teacher and state employee raises and public school funding, were never at risk of not being enacted, and the governor knew that.

But things are different this year, and Governor Cooper’s decision to veto the budget could have serious consequences for the lives of millions of North Carolinians across the state.

Republicans still hold a majority in both chambers of the General Assembly, but due to Democrats picking up seats in last year’s elections, we no longer have a supermajority. This means that unless enough Democrats vote with Republicans to override Governor Cooper’s veto then a number of essential priorities for the state, counties, and municipalities that are in that budget will not be enacted.

There were a number of Democratic legislators in both the Senate and House who voted for the budget when it passed the General Assembly, but some of them are already choosing party loyalty over good policy, saying they will uphold Governor Cooper’s veto when it comes up for a vote. A number of them even appeared at Governor Cooper’s budget veto announcement press conference last week less than 24 hours after they voted for that same budget.

Let me be very clear about what is at risk here.

The budget passed by the General Assembly provides most state employees with a 5 percent salary increase and provides teachers with an average raise of 3.9 percent over the next two years. It makes significant investments in public education, increasing funding by more than $1.4 billion over the next two years, and commits to $4.4 billion in funding for new schools and repairs. It also provides more than $91 million for school safety measures to protect our children and allocates money to clear the rape kit backlog in our state.

And those are just a few of the statewide items from the budget. Let’s take a look at what New Hanover County is in jeopardy of missing out on.

The budget allocates millions of dollars to the Hurricane Florence Disaster Recovery Reserve which would provide crucial funding in the county to help with ongoing recovery efforts from the storm and provides $8 million for repairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington which was damaged by Hurricane Florence.

Without a veto override, New Hanover County schools and community colleges would be missing out on a massive influx of capital funding as part of a plan to repair existing schools and build new schools around the state. The budget provides almost $17 million in capital funding for K-12 schools in the county as well as almost $10 million for Cape Fear Community College.

The county would also miss out on funding to battle the raging opioid epidemic including money for a pilot project to establish a Quick Response Team to address the needs of opiate and heroin overdose victims who are not getting follow-up treatment and money to address addition treatment in county jails.

Despite what Governor Cooper may claim, this is a budget that delivers for our state and New Hanover County. My Republican colleagues and I are hopeful we can override the veto but it’s not up to us at this point. Unless enough Democratic legislators decide that their constituents are more important than party loyalty, then Governor Cooper’s veto will stand and millions of North Carolinians will miss out on these important priorities.

Bill Rabon represents District 8 (Bladen, Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender) in the N.C. Senate. He lives in Southport. Reach him at Bill.Rabon@ncleg.net