Gov Bev’s Jobs Jive
Don’t be fooled by the smoke and mirrors. Beverly Perdue’s proposed budget isn’t saving any teacher jobs, opting instead to disingenuously pass the budget ax to local counties, including Mecklenburg.
It’s the same stunt Democrat legislators pulled this year, when they raided lotto funds and used the stolen loot to “save” teacher jobs, but at the expense of counties that were left to do the dirty work on the local level. Perdue is again dealing a shell game. This from the NC Association of County Commissioners:
The budget proposal unveiled by Governor Beverly Perdue on Thursday would cause a major shift in how the state’s public education system is funded, with the state forcing more responsibilities to county governments to help balance the state budget, said NCACC Executive Director David F. Thompson.
Not only does the proposed budget shift responsibility to pay for replacement school buses ($56.9 million), it also takes the unprecedented step of forcing counties to assume the workers’ compensation costs for state-paid public school employees ($34.6 million) and community college employees ($1.7 million). The proposal also reduces state-funded positions in the local public school systems for administration, academic support and other non-instructional support areas, which will put additional pressure on counties to fund these positions.
“Counties have been assured by lawmakers that the state will not attempt to balance its budget by pushing down unfunded mandates and additional responsibilities to counties or by taking county revenues,” said Thompson. “The current budget proposal does both, and we will be working with the House and Senate to address our concerns.”
Statutorily, counties are supposed to receive 40 percent of lottery proceeds for school capital needs. The proposed budget uses most of the county share of lottery proceeds for state education expenses and eliminates the county share of the corporate income tax dedicated to the Public School Building Capital Fund. These moves add up to a loss for counties of almost $200 million per year in much-needed school construction funds.
Many counties rely on the lottery proceeds and corporate income tax revenues to pay existing debt service on recently built or renovated schools. Losing this revenue will cause a direct hole in county budgets that must be filled with other county revenues or additional cuts in services.
In addition to once again raiding county coffers, Perdue’s budget plan pilfers the taxpayers’ pocket with a proposed extension of the so-called temporary sales tax. With any luck, the new Republican-led General Assembly will stop this theft dead in its track and let folks hold on to the few precious pennies they have.
It’ll be up to those same Republicans to hold firm on their plan to cut upwards of $140 million from state accounts for so-called business investment grants and other amorphous job creation schemes. Perdue is already fighting the plan tooth and nail, most recently by tossing out bogus claims of job creation. This from the folks at the NC Institute for Constitutional Law:
If you were privy to the governor’s State of the State speech Monday night you might be under the false impression that North Carolina has added thousands of jobs over the last two years. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While the governor said businesses have promised to create 58,000 jobs, she omitted the fact that the state has lost 128,260 jobs since she took office. A spokesman for the N.C. Dept of Commerce said the governor’s figure was based on “announced” jobs via the state’s incentives programs, which include the One NC Fund and JDIG. The rub is that companies that receive state incentives money are typically allowed three to five years to create the number of jobs they promise to the state. Thus these jobs are simply “pledged to be created,” rather than actually created right away.
Government does not create jobs; and certainly not a government headed by a common lotto thief like Bev Perdue.
We need your help! If you like PunditHouse, please consider donating to us. Even $5 a month can make a difference!
Short URL: https://pundithouse.com/?p=5206
