Another Budget Extension... | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Sarah Curry, who is Director of Fiscal Policy Studies for the John Locke Foundation.

    Guess what! Another budget extension has been passed by the General Assembly. Which means North Carolina is still without a spending plan for the current fiscal year. North Carolina's fiscal year began July 1st, with the state continuing operations under a temporary spending plan.

    This year is not unlike other years in the past. According to a chart on the webpage of Rep. McGrady (R-Henderson), since 1980, the General Assembly has used a temporary measure for budget authority 25 times and only approved a budget before the new fiscal year 11 times. It would seem that the use of temporary budgets has become the rule rather than the exception in state government.

    When lawmakers saw the writing on the wall that they were not going to finalize a budget before the beginning of the next fiscal year, they passed a continuing resolution, Senate Bill 534, S.L. 2015-133, to fund state government until August 14th. A few changes were made, but budget compromise between the two chambers was still not reached, so on August 13th the Governor signed Senate Bill 560, S.L. 2015-214, which continued expenditures for the operations of state government until August 31st. Unfortunately, two additional months was not long enough for lawmakers to finalize a state spending plan, so there is yet another budget extension.

    This time the extension, House Bill 18, S.L. 2015-233, gives lawmakers until September 18th to complete work on the state's two-year budget. The Senate had quite a few give their opinion during the debate about the tardy budget, but the bill to extend funding passed the Senate 37-6. A short fifteen minutes later, the House passed the legislation with no debate, 108-5.

    A Carolina Journal article hints at the idea that this budget will more than likely not be finalized by the new September 18th deadline.