Gov. Roy Cooper

The governor's proposal includes a few spending priorities worth highlighting for further consideration. So it's not all reckless, but Cooper's $4.7 billion bond proposal sure is.

Reforming the Emergency Management Act is about good governance, regardless of who resides in the governor’s mansion. No individual should have the power unilaterally to deprive citizens of their liberty for an extended period. Reforms would still allow for rapid responses for true emergencies.

The American Rescue Plan Act's $130 billion for K-12 education included $3.6 billion for North Carolina public schools, but strangely for an emergency, only 5 percent of that education spending will be spent this year. It's clear that this massive spending is about rewarding teachers’ unions and other constituencies that helped both Joe Biden and Roy Cooper get elected.

The largest increase in Cooper's proposed state appropriations would be for employee salaries and benefits. Cooper's proposal does not provide price tags for Leandro or Medicaid expansion. Cooper would also eliminate successful and popular Opportunity Scholarships.

Cooper’s 2021-23 biennium budget is more a political statement than a realistic proposal. It would leave state government fiscally fragile and at greater risk of layoffs and tax increases in a future recession.

Since 2019, after rocketing upward for seven years, North Carolina’s average teacher salary has increased by only $452, or 0.8 percent. Democratic obstructionism and uncertain economic conditions at the height of the pandemic led to two consecutive years of negligible salary growth.

Cooper’s budget proposal is an unrealistic political document, not a serious budget plan. It would increase budgeted expenditures over the current year by 11.6 percent. The budget would direct hundreds of millions to cronies and “niceties” that are outside the core functions of state government.

Cooper recommends 11 and 16 percent spending increases for K-12 public education for the next biennium, focusing on teacher and administrator pay increases, bonuses, hiring more staff and raising pay to $15/hour for noncertified staff.

The new Comprehensive Remedial Plan to comply with the Leandro ruling lacks critical details for how its measures would provide all public school children a sound basic education. Democrats and activists are pressuring the Republican-led General Assembly to adopt these expensive proposals — or the judge to force them despite the constitutional separation of powers.

On March 17, 2020, Gov. Cooper used emergency powers to shut down restaurants and bars to in-person eating and drinking, and he did so without concurrence from the Council of State, as required by the EMA. Cooper then claimed authority elsewhere in state law, setting a dangerous precedent that legislators must fix by reforming the EMA.