The State Budget and Where NC Ranks

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State Budget

The Senate is still in negotiations about their version of the budget.  We know just a few things about what the Senate is working on from the sub-committee appropriations meetings and from comments members have made to the media.  One of the senior budget writers, Senator Harry Brown (R-Onslow) told the Raleigh News & Observer that the Senate would likely release a budget that spends $500 million less than the House’s version. 

The Senate has released a schedule of when they want to get the budget completed.  They are expecting floor votes on June 10^th and 11^th and planning to be in discussions with the House for quite a while, hoping to have a final agreement on June 30^th, the last day of the state’s fiscal year.  More often than not, however, lawmakers must pass a continuing resolution to avoid a state government shutdown when budget discussions go past the end of the fiscal year.  There seems to be a strong possibility that will happen this year, with the two chambers failing to come to full agreement before July 1^st.

If you want to read more about the Senate and what they have discussed or have in the works for their budget plan, check out these news sources:

• House Budget Faces Uncertain Future: Senate, governor not enthusiastic about bipartisan spending plan

• Squabbling up as N.C. Senate prepares to vote on budget

• Senate budget writers sharpening knives

NC’s Fiscal Condition

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has published a working paper on State Fiscal Condition, a ranking of the 50 states.  It is a very interesting look at each state’s fiscal condition, measuring cash, budget, and solvency as well as the overall fiscal condition at the state level.  The highest-ranking states are Alaska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming.  The lowest ranking states are New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California.  Below are the rankings for North Carolina:

If you want to read more about these calculations, or check out the rankings for another state, click here for the entire report.

Civic Health

NC State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues has released a report highlighting North Carolina’s civic health.  This report is an index that shows where North Carolina ranks when compared to other states with regard to civic issues.  While this isn’t fiscal in nature, it does reflect what the citizens of our state think and feel.  If government is going to properly spend citizens’ tax dollars, they need to have a good idea of what interests citizens and what areas of their lives they feel are the most important.

This is how the report defines civic health:

What is civic health? It is the social and economic vitality that results when citizens interact productively with their neighbors, involve themselves in community institutions, and actively engage in public issues. Communities with high levels of civic health benefit from strong social networks characterized by trust and common purpose. These networks offer essential advantages, including an enhanced innovation capacity that bolsters economic resilience and increasingly drives wealth creation. Improved civic health has proven to be a powerful potential economic differentiator.

You can read the entire report here.  I have taken some of the key findings of the report and listed them below.  As a lifelong resident of North Carolina, I found that some of these were not surprising, while others were.

• North Carolinians participate at higher levels in schools, neighborhoods, and community groups and religious institutions compared to national averages, and at lower rates in sporting and recreational groups.
• North Carolinians have significantly lower trust in the media than the national average.
• North Carolinians have some unique civic engagement assets, including a high number of veterans who make up our engagement superstars.
• Young adults’ rates of participation on several indicators lag those of older adults by more than 25%.
• Young adults have more trust in corporations, the media, and public schools than their older counterparts.
• Families with incomes above $75,000 report civic engagement levels that far outpace those of families earning no more than $35,000 for most, but not all, indicators.
• Individuals holding at least a bachelor’s degree are substantially more engaged on most measured indicators than persons with a high school diploma.
• Rural and urban communities are more challenged to engage residents than suburban communities. In particular, rural residents report substantially less volunteering activity.

Click here for the Fiscal Update archive.

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