06/18/2008

By GARY D. ROBERTSON  / Associated Press

The North Carolina Senate gave initial approval to its $21.4 billion state budget Wednesday after a short debate that left Republicans voicing displeasure for being cut off by the Democrats in charge after a handful of amendments.

"Our people come down here to debate, to talk about issues and that didn't happen," said Deputy Minority Leader Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson. "I'm disappointed. I thought we were better than that."

The 33-16 vote in favor of the spending plan for state government next year came a little more than an hour after Democrats began laying out details of the budget, which earmarks more money to higher education than the proposal that cleared the House two weeks ago.

"I'm pleased with the investments that we've made," said Sen. Linda Garrou, D-Forsyth, the Senate's chief budget writer. "This is a responsible plan for education."

Senate Democrats keep a tight rein on the floor, typically limiting budget debate through parliamentary maneuvers that prevent them from having to vote on most GOP amendments. Historically, the House has generally allowed longer debates and considered more amendments.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand "called the question" to vote on the budget before a single Republican got up to discuss the contents in the 200-page budget bill. The move means there will be no discussion of the budget Thursday, either, before a final Senate vote.

"What we saw in there today was probably the worst example of how a democratically-elected representative body conducts business," said Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. "Just the process by itself would be a reason to vote against it."

Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said Republicans and Democrats both participated in creating the budget, rejecting Berger's argument that the bill was formulated behind closed doors only by Democrats, who hold 31 of the 50 seats.

He said debate was cut off because they believed Republicans were ready to offer amendments designed to embarrass Democrats or put them on the record on a hot-button topic. One GOP amendment would have dealt with abortion. Another would have involved state employee salaries.

"The purpose of those amendments are simply to create an ad that could be used against a senator," Basnight said.

After Thursday's vote, the Senate will negotiate with the House to present a compromise budget to Gov. Mike Easley by July 1. The Senate budget did satisfy many concerns raised about the House budget by Easley. But it still falls well short of offering the nearly 7 percent raise Easley wants for teachers.

The Senate plan would spend $15.5 million overall more than the House. But the state's small revenue surplus motivated Democrats in each chamber to agree to raise year-to-year spending by only about 3 percent, compared with the more than 9 percent increase of the previous two years when the state had billion-dollar surpluses.

The budget would give $20 million more than the House to the University of North Carolina system to pay for the costs of students enrolling this fall, as well as $14 million to pay for faculty and graduate student recruitment and retention and improvements to research funding.

The Senate budget includes $41 million for Easley's signature More at Four preschool program, compared with the $23 million provided by the House budget. But that's still short of the $45 million that Easley requested in his budget proposal last month.

Democrats did support one GOP amendment to require a yearly review of the effectiveness of Gov. Mike Easley's signature More at Four program.

But Berger said the budget bill spends too much money on untested programs and not enough on infrastructure needs: "What we see is schools that continue to fail, highways that continue to crumble and congestion continues to get worse."

Three Republicans — Sens. Richard Stevens of Wake County; Stan Bingham of Davidson County; and Fletcher Hartsell of Cabarrus County — joined all Democrats present in supporting the bill.

Like the House, the Senate budget includes an average 3 percent pay raise for public school teachers. Easley wanted raises of nearly 7 percent to help the state's teachers reach the national average salary before he leaves office in January. The Senate added a provision that could boost the raises above 3 percent if the state collects more tax money than it expects.

House and Senate Democrats do disagree on many issues, including the level of borrowing that should be authorized, how much to spend on school bus diesel fuel and how far to expand a health insurance program for children in low-income families.