Legislative Update: Missing from Raleigh — a budget and a senator

Two things continue to be missing from the General Assembly  – a budget for fiscal year 2015-16 and Sen. Bill Cook, R-Chocowinity.

On Thursday, Aug. 13, the deadline for producing the state’s budget was extended until Aug. 31. The budget was to take effect on July 1, but is the tardiest since 2002. School systems across the state are set to open their doors on Aug. 24 for the new school year but have been forced to guess what appropriations may be coming their way.

Among the conflicting issues to be worked out by the chambers is that the House version of the budget would continue funding teaching assistants while the Senate’s proposal would eliminate an estimated 8,500 positions. Members of both chambers have dug in their heels in defending their opposing positions. There also is a $500 million difference between the two versions that must be sorted through before they can begin work on reaching a consensus plan that the governor is willing to sign..

But while members are busy trying to protect their individual pet projects in the budget, Cook has been missing in action since July 29 when he last voted.

Jordan Hennessy, Cook’s legislative assistant, declined to disclose the reason for the more than two-week absence during which many of the issues on the legislative table are those that substantially affect the senator’s district, such as the redistribution of sales tax and the funding of the shallow-draft inlet fund needed to support the dredging of both Oregon and Hatteras inlets.

Both items are in the Senate version of the proposed budget, and the plan to redistribute the sales tax also has been added to an economic development package bill requested by the governor. That bill, House Bill 117, passed the Senate this week with the sales tax issue added and is now back in the House for concurrence.

In the meantime, sources in Raleigh say that their understanding is that Cook is on vacation in Europe.

Queried about whether the senator took only his wife or the entire family on the trip, Hennessy’s only comments are: “The Senator has been attending to a non-public family matter” and “It’s a personal non-public family matter.”

Asked if the senator will return soon, Hennessy replied that he would. Although not queried specifically about Cook’s voting record, Hennessy offered that, as of Wednesday, Aug. 12, Cook had only 61 excused absences for the session, while other lawmakers from the northeastern part of the state had surpassed that. Rep. Bob Steinburg, he said, has 191 excused absences.

In other legislative action this week, Senate Bill 448, having passed both chambers is now on the governor’s desk awaiting his signature. The bill, if enacted into law, will require that the same taxes applied to other motor fuels also be charged on propane used as fuel for vehicles.

SB 607 – the Taxpayer Protection Act – has now cleared the Senate and been sent to the House. The bill combines three earlier proposed N.C. Constitution amendments into one bill. It has drawn fire from members in both chambers because the swift action hampered time for debate and because the bill takes three separate items and melds them into one proposed referendum.

If approved by the House and governor, the bill will add a referendum to the 2016 presidential election ballot. Voters will be asked to cast their votes for or against the following: “Constitutional amendments adding the Taxpayer Protection Act to the North Carolina Constitution that would limit the growth of State spending to inflation plus population growth, establish and require yearly deposits in an Emergency Savings Reserve Fund in the State Treasury, and reduce the maximum allowable income tax rate in North Carolina from ten percent (10%) to five percent (5%).”

(Sandy Semans is a retired newspaper editor and reporter who now works as a free-lance writer.  She lives in Stumpy Point. Her update on the goings-on in this session of the General Assembly will appear weekly in The Island Free Press, usually on Friday.)

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