Session convened on Wednesday of this week. During the “Short Session,” the primary focus of the General Assembly is to make adjustments to the biennium budget that we past last year in order to make sure that we maintain our Constitutional obligation of having a balanced budget. Currently, the State is facing an $800 million budget shortfall ($1.3 billion without federal recovery funds). Job creation and education will continue to be top priorities as we work through the current economic downturn.
Jobs
Throughout WNC we are faced with double digit unemployment. The recent unemployment numbers highlight why developing, creating, and retaining jobs will be one of the primary focuses for the upcoming short session and the budget that we will eventually pass.

One initiative that will help us retain and create more jobs is the One North Carolina Small Business Fund. The One North Carolina Small Business Fund is a two part program, SBIR/STTR Phase I Incentive Funds Program and the SBIR/STTR Phase I Matching Funds Program. The SBIR/STTR Phase I Incentive Funds Program partially reimburses small business in North Carolina the cost of submitting Phase I Proposals to the Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program and the SBIR/STTR Phase I Matching Funds provides funds to North Carolina Businesses that receive SBIR or STTR Phase I monies. This is a program that has allowed small businesses in North Carolina to create jobs and remain competitive in the larger market.
Another important job creation and retention program is the Small Business Assistance Fund. Created last year, the Fund provides low-interest loans to small businesses, primarily in North Carolina’s 85 rural counties, that are having trouble getting access to credit.
In keeping with the emphasis on creating jobs, I will introduce a bill next week that I worked on with the Rural Center. The Clean Water Partners Program is directed toward low-to-moderate-income rural communities, with a maximum grant of $500,000. It also requires a dollar-for-dollar match, which means for every dollar coming from the Clean Water Partners Program two dollars will be invited in the critical infrastructure needs. If passed, this bill will help create up to 3,500 construction jobs in our rural communities, the areas where local economies are struggling the most. This will help create and retain jobs and also help meet the rural water and sewer needs.

Teachers and State Employees
In the Governor’s Budget, she proposed a $135 million cut to public education. Instead, we can eliminate most of this cut by dropping step increase pay for teachers and removing the furlough payback. While we would like to raise teacher pay and provide that money back to state employees, I cannot consider layoffs for teachers and state employees just so that others can get a pay raise. It would not be the right thing to do and it would have a drastic affect on our local schools’ abilities to provide a good education.

Beyond the critical services that the State is obligated to provide, nothing will be off-limits when it comes to cutting spending. In last year’s budget, we cut over $2 billion of spending and this year we will cut close to $1 billion more. The Senate is currently on track to introduce the budget next week and vote on it by Thursday, May 20.