Legislative Update from Rep. Frank Iler – June 16, 2014
Last week in the North Carolina House of Representatives was “Budget Week”. The Senate had finished with the budget, Senate Bill 744, the previous week. It was our job in the House to review it, make our changes, and send it back to them for their agreement and approval. This budget actually consists of adjustments to the biennial budget we passed last year. We are adjusting the 2013 – 2015 budget for the 2014 – 2015 fiscal year. We have newly revised revenue projections and spending priorities. So, it was a busy week.
Early in the week it was a real pleasure to welcome the first page I have sponsored during this short session. Mr. Tyler Kopp, a rising junior at South Brunswick High School, was in Raleigh to serve as a page in the House for the week. His mother Kristy was staying in town, so my wife Jackie and I got to visit with her, also. Thanks to Tyler for helping us in the House and learning what we do there. It was a pleasant surprise to also be visited by several Mayors and other town officials during a break in committee meetings. Mayor Allan Holden of Holden Beach, Mayor Debbie Smith of Ocean Isle Beach, and Mayor Harry Simmons of Caswell had a brief conversation with me.
We started early Tuesday with meetings of all the Appropriations Committee subcommittees, meeting to review the revisions for our areas of the budget. In my case, being Vice-Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, we went over recommended changes. They included additional Powell Bill funds for towns to improve their city streets, additional funds for resurfacing secondary state roads, and elimination of all ferry tolls. Some of these provisions are controversial, but we approved the changes by a unanimous vote.
On Wednesday the full House Appropriations Committee met to hear all the recommended changes from the subcommittees, make amendments to the budget bill, and vote it out of committee. I had a major amendment to the Education section of the budget. I have wanted to restore the Teaching Fellows program since it was eliminated in the 2011 budget. This program offers scholarships to graduating high school students who are going into teaching. It attracts over 100 of our best and brightest students to go into teaching each year and gives them a $26,000 scholarship in exchange for at least four years of teaching in North Carolina. I proposed the amendment that passed, and was included in the House budget. After an eight hour meeting, which considered 85 amendments the budget bill passed and was recommended to the full House.
The full House took up the budget bill on Thursday. During another eight hour marathon meeting we considered almost 40 more amendments and hours of debate. One amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ted Davis of New Hanover County, put a revised film incentive program into the budget. It got strong support and passed 90 – 26. The full budget bill passed about 8:00 p.m. by a vote of 81 – 36. The bill contained an average 5% raise for teachers, and took out many of the controversial provisions involving education. The vote was bipartisan, as 8 Democrats joined 73 Republicans in voting for it. It required a second vote on another day, so we returned for an unusual Friday session and passed it again. This second vote was 77 – 35, again a bipartisan vote. Since it is different from the bill as passed by the Senate, it goes back to the Senate for their concurrence. They are expected to not concur, and it will go into conference committee meetings this week to work out the differences.