OpEd – Our Best Days Lie Ahead

The North Carolina legislature recently completed work on the state’s budget, a process that parallels in many ways one that families across our community engage in every year. Around kitchen tables piled with bills and calculators, we balance our needs and our wants with our incomes and savings. We take into account our expected earnings, our foreseeable expenses and try to put a little away for all the things we can’t anticipate.

Over the last two years, as the effects of a global financial crisis have reverberated from Wall Street to the streets of our cities and towns, this process has been become far more difficult for many of us. Too many of our neighbors have lost jobs and the benefits that came with them. Some of those lucky enough to have found work have had to accept lower pay and fewer hours.

The process has been incredibly challenging for state governments across the nation as well. As unemployment grew so did the demand for state services. In North Carolina, we engaged this year in an exhaustive effort to eliminate unnecessary spending, preserve essential services and make smart investments so all our neighbors can share in a full and lasting recovery as quickly as possible. Programs that have helped thousands of our citizens find work, avoid foreclosure, or keep their health coverage were retained or expanded, but the most important investments we made were in the most effective engines of recovery: education, economic development and assistance to small business.

Our task was made easier by careful planning and responsible budgeting over the years immediately leading up to the crash of 2008. While no one could have anticipated the magnitude of the economic disaster, we do not have to look far to see what might have been required without this foresight. Other states have been forced to make devastating cuts to even the most essential programs, compromising the quality of their future workforce and delaying or denying the dreams of many of their citizens.

I am proud of the fact that, even while facing nearly a billion dollar deficit following last year’s four billion dollar loss in state revenue, this year’s budget contained no additional cuts to K-12 public education positions¹, allowing our teachers to focus on their core mission of providing a sound, globally competitive education to every child. By comparison, Mississippi cut their investment in K-12 education by nearly 10% and California was forced to lay off 27,000 teachers, 15% of their force. Louisiana lawmakers are considering a four day school week for all students, while Arizona cut state funding for full-day kindergarten by half and eliminated preschool for 4,328 children².

The contrasts are even clearer in the region’s funding of their state Universities. The cut to the UNC system in this year’s budget represents a reduction of exactly .03%, while robust enrollment growth and student financial aid was fully funded¹. By comparison, South Carolina cut state funding to their colleges and universities by 24%, Virginia cut theirs by 15% and Louisiana by 20%. Georgia will lay off 1,418 state college and university employees and impose six furlough days on those who remain².

Expanding access to our state’s community college system has allowed a record number of our citizens to take advantage of worker retraining programs, helping those who lost jobs in this recession get off unemployment and back into full time positions. In this year’s budget, Community and Technical Colleges saw a budget increase of 3.5% and full funding of over 15% enrollment growth¹, while maintaining the second lowest tuition rate in the country³. At the same time, Georgia cut their technical college budget by 6%² while charging nearly twice our state’s tuition³.

While an educated workforce has been the driving force behind our state’s progress for a century, we can only expect to retain our best and brightest if our businesses survive and prosper. We continued balanced economic development policies that include investment in our state’s businesses with an aggressive mix of targeted incentives, tax credits to encourage research and development, the creation of venture capital and an emphasis on renewable energy and regional job growth sectors. We made investments in small business incubators, expanded loans and provided $34 million in tax relief to small businesses, and made crucial energy and technology infrastructure improvements as well¹.

Unlike many other states, we were able to make these investments, reduce spending to the lowest level in 14 years⁴ and balance our budget without raising taxes on our citizens and businesses. In fact, North Carolina was once again tied for the lowest total effective business tax rate in the U.S⁵. The national business rankings reflect the success of these investments and policies, with North Carolina ranked as having the best business climate in the nation for the eighth time in nine years by Site Selection Magazine⁶. We are one of only seven states to retain the market’s top AAA bond rating⁷ and are ranked fourth in CNBC’s list of the “Top States for Business”⁸.

Finally, this year’s budget also protects the state’s most vulnerable citizens with sustained basic health and human services¹, initiates a major Medicaid fraud investigation and prosecution unit, and increases vital juvenile and adult justice and public safety resources¹, particularly through the collection of DNA from suspects on arrest for major crimes⁹ and critically needed inter-agency technology improvements.

We are facing tremendously challenging times as a state and a community, and yet I remain hopeful that our best days are ahead of us. As the national recovery begins there are some would have us believe North Carolina is falling behind, but as John Adams once said facts are stubborn things, and we must only look around our region and the country we can see the depth of crisis we have managed to avoid. Having weathered the recession far better than many of our neighboring states through responsible governance and careful planning, we are well positioned to move North Carolina and Cumberland County into a brighter, more prosperous and more secure future for all our citizens.