After months of delay, North Carolina lawmakers agreed on a budget proposal this week.
NC Local reached out to Western North Carolina legislators to see what they think are the most important parts of the state budget. Lawmakers from both parties agreed on two points: They are happy that the budget process is ending, and they are pleased to see additional Hurricane Helene disaster recovery funding.
The final budget proposal was officially shared on Tuesday morning around 10am.
Senate and House leaders have continued to discuss and vote on the bill throughout the week. As of Thursday morning, both the House and Senate gave approval to the major spending plan, with final votes set for later in the day.
The 634-page proposal encompasses $34.4 billion in spending for the 2025-2027 fiscal years.
Here’s what WNC lawmakers had to say about different parts of the budget plan:
Education
Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) chairs both the education/higher education committee as well as the appropriations education/higher education committee so the area he identified as most important in the budget shouldn’t be a surprise: education.
“[The] education budget is $19.4 billion, which is actually 57% of the state budget,” Corbin said. “I said on the floor today, ‘When you tell me something’s important, I want to see your checkbook. I want to see what you’re spending your money on.’ And if you look at North Carolina in this budget, we’re spending 57% of our budget on education, which means it’s important.”
Corbin said he is especially proud of a more than $35 million allocation for Propel NC, a community college program, for a workforce continuing education programs as well as funding for increases in lead teacher pay. Corbin said he wishes the budget included more capital investment projects in Western North Carolina.
Rep. Lindsey Prather (D-Buncombe) also highlighted the Propel NC program. She explained the program is to “help reorganize the different tiers in our community college workforce program and try to provide more money for the short-term workforce credential program as opposed to just the transfer degree program.”
“[There’s] some acknowledgment here that the funding formula that we use for community college programs doesn’t necessarily match what we say we value and what we say we need to invest in them. So, this budget does a little bit to help correct that,” Prather said.
Sen. Julie Mayfield(D-49) said a lack of funding for early childhood education and free school meals were key priorities for her that are not in the budget proposal.
Pay for state employees and teachers
Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) and Sen. Julie Mayfield (D-Buncombe) agreed that state employee raises were a key aspect of the budget for the region.
About 7% of the state’s active state employees live and work in Western North Carolina, according to the Office of State Human Resources.
State employees are expected to receive a 3% pay increase across the board with additional funding for the certain departments such as raises for law enforcement officers ranging from 10.1% to 27.5%.
The raises are not retroactive, a change from prior years, meaning pay bumps will only be effective when the budget becomes law. After both chambers vote, the bill heads to Governor Josh Stein to approve or veto the measure.
Under the proposal, teachers will receive 8% average raises, but educators with more experience get smaller pay increases.
The starting pay for teachers moves up from $41,000 to $48,000, an increase of 17%. But base salaries for teachers with 25 years of experience or more would rise from $55,950 to $59,000, an increase of 5.5%. Many districts also provide a supplement for their teachers, so base salaries often do not reflect total compensation.
Mayfield pushed back against the structure of teacher raises in this proposal.
“When it comes to teachers’ raises, it’s an average of 8% that’s very heavily weighted towards teachers who are early in their career. And once you get to be a mid-career teacher, you kind of stall out and your raise under this budget is not very much,” Mayfield said. However she did highlight that “Buncombe County will once again receive teacher pay supplements from the state.”
Income and corporate tax rates
The current income tax rate for 2026 in North Carolina is 3.99%. The new proposal drops the rate over the next seven years, starting with 3.49% next year, then 3.24% in 2030, and 2.99% in 2033.
Gillespie highlighted the lower personal income tax rate as an important part of the budget.
Prather said she was concerned about the impact of these policies on future funding for disaster recovery and overall flexibility for the state.
“The fact that this budget is still pushing forward bringing the corporate income tax rate down to zero and bringing the personal income tax rate down to below 3% after 2030. I think we are really handicapping ourselves in the future from being flexible and being able to work hard and solve problems down the line,” Prather said.
Hurricane Helene recovery funding
WNC legislators from both parties and in both houses agreed on what they see as the top priority: Hurricane Helene disaster recovery funding.
The budget plan includes $760 million in additional funding for recovery including funding for private road and bridge repairs and $35 million for housing and reconstruction projects. It also allocates $99.6 million to the Office of State Budget management for a variety of other programs.
Corbin, who co-chairs the Helene Recovery Committee, said he is happy that the Western North Carolina delegation was able to advocate for this amount of Helene funding. He said the new funding brings the total for Helene relief to $3 billion. He highlighted the need to “keep money in the pipeline,” but also to allow time for recovery work to be done.
Prather said she wishes the funding had been in a standalone bill earlier this year.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get this sooner. I think everybody in the legislature was ready to move forward on additional hurricane recovery funding. I wish that this had been a standalone bill, and we would have voted on it months ago,” she said.
NC Local spoke to Gillespie in May on the day that the budget deal was first announced about the inclusion of Helene funding in the budget.
“Helene recovery is a continual process. It’s not going to stop with what we’re working on,” Gillespie said.
During the same interview, he explained that part of the funding consideration would be to “claw back” Helene-appropriated funds from previous legislation.
This budget moves about more than $151 million that was previously appropriated and allocated to state agencies into the Helene Recovery funding. This includes $21 million from the Department of Public Instruction, $8 million previously allocated for capital recovery funds for public school facilities and $3.94 million previously allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Social Services, for the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The legislators NC Local spoke with said that these reallocations are standard procedure and were taken from pots of funding that were not being used.
Mayfield compared the Helene funding to Gov. Stein’s proposed budget in March which included “Phase Three” Helene recommendations. His budget proposal called for $790 million overall – more than the $760 million of new allocations in the current proposal.
Stein also wanted $100 million additional funding for private road and bridge repair, more than $10 million for the N.C. Forest Service for wildfire mitigation and $20 million for small business loans.
The budget proposal includes $30 million for private road and bridge repair, $7 million for the state Department of Agriculture for wildfire mitigation and no additional small business funding.
“There isn’t anything in here to help private businesses recover,” Mayfield said. She said she is also concerned there won’t be enough money for home repair and replacement in the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program. .
Prather agreed.
“We still need grants for small businesses. We’ve been saying that since the day after the storm hit. It’s just not something that the legislature has been willing to do. So that is one thing that I’m disappointed is not included here,” she said.
Stein’s proposed budget also outlined that there is more than $834 million available from remaining in the Hurricane Helene Fund, unobligated Helene funding that could be reallocated and $627 million in the Stabilization and Inflation Reserve.
Corbin explained that “about $400 million of that is matching money to be able to draw down federal funds.” He was part of a bipartisan delegation that visited D.C. a few weeks ago with Gov. Stein to discuss recovery needs at the federal level including meetings with federal Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-11) and U.S. Sen. Ted Budd (R-13).
Corbin said he believes this meeting led to Budd’s pledge to block any federal funding allocations that do not include Helene recovery funding.
“We feel like we got through to them. They’re going to bat for us, and we expect that we’ll get more federal money,” Corbin said.
Corbin said he doesn’t expect another Helene recovery bill to be passed until next year.
Will Michaels contributed to this report.
Correction: Two legislators’ titles have been corrected. More than $35 million in funding for Propel NC was clarified as part of the program’s workforce continuing education.
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