McCrory signs law allowing some NC National Guard members to carry concealed

Leaders from the North Carolina Senate and House have agreed on how much money will be in the upcoming budget, although they have not reached a final agreement on how it will be spent.

The new budget bottom line is $21.7 billion, which is $265 million more than the Senate was looking to spend, and $415 million less than the House had proposed. The offices of Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore confirmed the amount.

The agreed-upon figure is closer to the spending level sought by Senate leaders and McCrory in recent weeks, or about $21.65 billion.

The Senate again has passed a bill containing a retooled formula for distributing annually more than $2.5 billion in sales taxes for counties and municipalities. While that does not mean that there is a budget deal, it means that now the two chambers can start to work out some details of spending.

The new budget number is a 3.1 percent increase from the current year’s spending – roughly in the middle of the two proposals.

Both chambers and the Governor have been feeling the heat to finalize a state budget, now 49 days overdue with a continuing resolution keeping state government operating through August 31st.

“This agreement is the result of ongoing dialogue during the last several weeks”, McCrory said in a release. House and Senate lawmakers have put forward significantly different proposals for how to address those issues. The Senate’s original budget grew by less than 2 percent.

Much work remains to be done, as traditional calendar schools return next week and and those districts want to know how much money they can spend.

In a blog post Tuesday morning, House budget writer Chuck McGrady of Hendersonville indicated that a spending target close to the Senate’s preference could make the House’s other priorities hard to achieve. The temporary spending measures in place since July 1 largely have directed spending to continue at last year’s lower levels, save for a $100 million-plus cash injection to prepare for higher school enrollment and higher early-career teacher salaries.