The Governor delivered her State of the State last night which included glimpses of her budget to be delivered in detail later this week. Highlights included a commitment to continued funding of all teachers and teaching assistants, reducing the corporate income tax, and free community college tuition for good grades. You can read the full speech and the Republican response (including a commitment to pass a moratorium on forced annexations) on line. The General Assembly is scheduled to hear the details of the Governor’s budget on Thursday in Appropriations at 1 pm. You can listen to the presentation through the General Assembly’s audio link. The Governor also released a new tool today called the Balance the Budget Tool where you can see some of the options she considered.
One of the revenue generating options in the Governor’s new on line budget tool is to regulate video lottery terminals which the tool says will bring in $700 million. In anticipation of such a discussion in the General Assembly the House Republicans held a closed door meeting with the video gaming interests and those opposed to measure which generated lots of stories.
Both the Joint Transportation Appropriations (House and Senate membership) and the Joint Transportation Policy Committees (House and Senate membership) met today to hear presentations by NCDOT. At Transportation Appropriations the members heard from Terry Gibson, State Highway Administrator, on DOT Maintenance, Construction, and Secondary Roads. Follow up questions focused immediately on the Powell Bill formula with members noting that 7 cities receive Powell Bill funds, yet don’t have any road miles to maintain. The Committee asked for a copy of the 2010 North Carolina State Street-Aid Allocations to Municipalities as well as two reports on the SPOT Safety Program. Expect more dialogue on both in the near future. When asked about NCDOT’s position on transferring roads to counties Gibson noted that the NCDOT has better facilities and yards than counties and the ability to reposition assets after a major storm without having to negotiate ninety-nine different local agreements. He also noted the purchasing power of the department when buying salts, stone, sand, etc.
In the Transportation Policy Committee this afternoon the members heard a presentation on the NCDOT website from Mark Tyler which was given last week to the Transportation Appropriations committee.
Last week NC GO issued a letter encouraging the General Assembly to preserve existing funding sources, explore new funding sources, encourage the use of more tolling and public private partnerships, support transit, and start to consider new ways to supporting our transportation infrastructure.
SB27 Involuntary Annexation Moratorium passed out of the Senate State and Local Government Committee and could be on the Senate floor as early as tomorrow.
Rumor is that redistricting data will be released to the State this week and that the Republican leadership has set a goal of sending the final maps to the U.S. Justice Department by mid April. In anticipation of the data release the N.C. House just announced the membership of the redistricting committee which includes the leadership of David Lewis, Senior Chair; Dockham and Dollar, chairs; Burr, McComas, Samuelson, and West, as vice-chairs.
The City of Raleigh wanted to make you aware of the opportunity to test drive the new Nissan LEAF. Check out the details here.
