Budget adjustments and pandemic-related policy changes will top legislators’ agendas when they reconvene in full session next Wednesday. Legislative observers believe the session, a planned continuation of the short session that began April 28, may last only a few days. Topics city officials have their eyes on include an appropriation to provide rent and utility assistance for individuals with overdue bills. Additionally, N.C. Senate Republican leaders targeted child care regulations as
another topic they hoped to address during the legislative session. Entities like local parks and recreation programs, and others like YMCA’s and Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs, now face regulatory challenges in providing alternate care settings to school-age children during remote school days. Senate leaders indicated a willingness to smooth those difficulties.
Other topics will certainly grab headlines when legislators meet, due to the significant amount of federal CARES Act funding that remains unappropriated. Unless Congress takes action, $900 million allocated to North Carolina for pandemic response must be spent by December 30. Budget writers are purportedly considering spending large sums from that pot to provide additional unemployment payments to out of work individuals. And House members on committees considering health and education needs prompted by the pandemic developed
their own lists of spending requests for those CARES Act funds. Then, Gov. Cooper earlier this week issued
his own spending recommendations, including $200 million for counties and cities directly (see separate article in this Bulletin).
Back in July, when legislators set the date for this upcoming session, they anticipated two changed circumstances in the state’s budget picture that have not yet come to pass. First, they anticipated that Congress would loosen restrictions on how the CARES Act funds may be spent, extend the time in which states must spend the funds, and send additional relief dollars to states. But so far,
negotiations in Congress have languished, despite intense efforts by groups including
city officials in North Carolina and across the country. Second, legislators anticipated having in hand an updated revenue forecast for the current fiscal year, based on income tax returns received in mid-July. Instead, non-partisan legislative budget forecasters
postponed a revised forecast until at least late September, citing uncertainty in revenues due to the vagaries of the pandemic. Therefore, legislators do not yet have figures on which to base any budget adjustments for this current fiscal year.
