
No budget deal appears to be in reach at the General Assembly, as the fiscal year ends at the end of June. This suggests another longer-than-intended long session, likely stretching into fall, and sparks discussions on the viability of session limits in North Carolina.
Leaders of the House and Senate gave promising hope that a budget deal could be completed by July 1, but this week brought no compromise between the two chambers. Policy items like taxes, as well as state employee and teacher pay, have been dividing points between the House and Senate, which need additional time to sort out key differences.
“It is hardly surprising that the legislature will not complete the budget before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1,” said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation. “The budget is a large, complex piece of legislation, and the temptation to delay action on it as part of the negotiating process is too great.”
While there is no government shutdown at the state level if a budget is not finalized, like at the federal level, Jackson believes extending the time state legislators must attend voting sessions at the General Assembly in Raleigh has several drawbacks.
Jackson outlined in an article last year that every day the General Assembly is in session costs an estimated $65,827. This means adding additional days to the legislative session can amount to millions of dollars. Aside from the financial aspect, extending the long session past June limits the amount of time elected officials get to spend in their home districts with constituents. The uncertainty also limits who has the flexible lifestyle needed to serve in the General Assembly.
“Every day that legislators are in Raleigh is one less day they are in the communities that elected them,” Jackson wrote. “Such sessions also limit who can serve in the General Assembly to those who do not need to work regularly to support their families.”
Working as a state legislator is supposed to be a part-time job, but with a $13,951 annual salary, Jackson says it’s not nearly enough to supplement another source of income when extensions result in long and irregular sessions. Of 41 states and five US territories that provide legislators an annual salary, North Carolina’s salary ranks fifth-lowest.
The lifestyle limits those who can serve in legislative office to individuals who are either retired, have flexible working hours, or are higher-income, which is why Jackson has argued that increasing legislator salaries is also necessary.
While session lengths have been trending upward over the past decade, a constitutional amendment requiring the General Assembly to finish its work before July could put an end to future session extensions.
“Formal session limits, with a cause allowing for emergency sessions, would help end the gamesmanship we have seen all too often over the past decade,” said Jackson. “If legislators know that they have to wrap up the session by the end of June, they will begin serious work on the budget earlier in the session.”
But are session limits an attainable solution that could be enacted in the future? Jackson believes legislators would be open to them, but the main pushback would come from leadership, who tend to use the long-game strategy to their advantage, holding out the entire negotiation process with no end in sight.
And who feels the impact in this drug-out process? The rest of the legislators — and taxpayers.
“I believe rank-and-file members are open to session limits,” Jackson said. “The problem is that leadership, especially on the Senate side, sees delaying the budget as part of the negotiating process. As long as leaders believe there are no consequences to long sessions, we will continue to see them.”
The post NCGA budget talks stall, but could session limits help? first appeared on Carolina Journal.