Tag search result

State Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson said Monday she will recommend teachers be exempted from paying income taxes.

The tax exemption for charter school and traditional public school teachers would cost the state $300 million, according to her figures.

The House and Senate budget proposals do not include raises for teachers or state employees. Atkinson said she would not be making the recommendation if the legislature had provided for raises.

The House and Senate will negotiate changes in the state tax code this week. No proposal has included an income tax exemption for teachers.

The AARP is asking Gov. Pat McCrory to veto a bill that raises rates on most consumer finance loans.

The legislation passed by wide margins in the House and Senate.

The bill calls for a 30 percent interest rate on loans of up to $4,000. For larger loans, the 30 percent interest applies to the first $4,000, drops to 24 percent for the next $4,000 and to 18 percent for the next $2,000.

"This legislation is going to hurt seniors and other consumers that use these loans by increasing interest rates and adding new fees," AARP Nc Director Doug Dickerson said in a statement.

States that don't expand Medicaid will take a fiscal hit, according to a RAND Corporation study released Monday.

The legislature passed a bill earlier this year to not expand Medicaid, which Gov. Pat McCrory signed.

The RAND study did not look at North Carolina on its own, but analyzed the fiscal impact on 14 states that aren't expanding Medicaid under the federal health care law. Those states will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care in 2016 than they would if Medicaid is expanded, the report said. Additionally, the states are giving up $8.4 billion in annual federal payments, the report said.

The federal government and the states pay for Medicaid, but under the expansion, the federal government would pay all the costs for most of the new people from 2014 to 2016, and then gradually cut reimbursement to 90 percent.

About 500,000 more low-income people would have been eligible to use Medicaid if the state had decided to expand the program.

Senate Republican leaders have said they do not trust the federal government to keep its payment promise. Legislators are frustrated by Medicaid cost increases that have come from poor state budget forecasting.

The N.C. Public Charter Schools Association board of advisors is adding its voice to the chorus opposing creation of a governing board for charter schools separate from the State Board of Education.

State Board Chairman Bill Cobey, one of Gov. Pat McCrory's appointees, says he doesn't want a separate board and questioned its constitutionality. Senate Bill 337 passed the Senate largely along party lines, with Democrats opposed, and now sits in the House.

The bill would set up a charter school board to review and accept charter applications and make sure the schools comply with standards. The State Board of Education could overrule charter board decisions by a three-fourths vote.

The State Board has a charter advisory board that reviews applications and makes recommendations, but the State Board has the last word.

The association appears to be changing its position on the special board. The email Monday announcing the advisors' vote said "The Association had said it initially supported…."

And on April 3, the association sent out a press release thanking the bill sponsors, praising the legislation, and detailing more changes the association wanted.

But association executive director Eddie Goodall said the association never supported a separate charter board. "I don't think I was saying that," Goodall said. "It might have looked like that."

If a Medicaid employees greet you from now on with a nod and a smile but refuse to talk, they're not being rude. They're afraid for their jobs.

Over the last six weeks employees with the state Medicaid office have received a series of gag orders from Medicaid director Carol Steckel and managers.

The most recent came from Steckel, who wrote in an email Thursday that Medicaid staff should stop talking to legislative staff.

This appears to be a repeated order, since the subject on the email is "One more time."

"Please make sure EVERYONE in your area knows that any and ALL questions posed by anyone in the legislative body (policy and fiscal), including former employees, should be routed through (1) Rocky Thompson if it is legislative in nature and/or (2) Rick Friedman if it is budget/finance related.

"The next time someone responds inappropriately there will be significant personnel actions taken for both the supervisor and the person not complying with this policy."

ProgressNC is trying to keep the cap on K-3 class sizes. Action NC is trying to stop vouchers.

These groups have online petitions trying to show opposition.

Though the provision talking the lid off class sizes is in the Senate budget, ProgressNC has its petition aimed at Gov. Pat McCrory. The group says it wants 7,500 names by Friday. The online tally shows it had 9,698 at 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

Action NC is aiming its petition at the N.C. House. It had 1,645 names and is aiming for 2,000.

A bill requiring public schools to teach cursive writing is on its way to becoming law.

The Senate, again, approved a bill requiring cursive. This time, the vote was 46-3 and there was no debate.

This makes two cursive bills the Senate has approved. The Senate passed its own identical bill last month. The bill approved Thursday is a House bill sponsored by Rep. Pat Hurley. The idea picked up a few Senate supporters in the last month

When this becomes law, school kids will be required to learn cursive starting next year.

The legislature's push to the political right, continues to gain national attention, with another article appearing over the holiday weekend in The Washington Post.

The headline reads, “North Carolina, unimpeded GOP drives state hard to the right,” and highlights the influence of the Koch brothers and Art Pope, all conservative political donors, the “Moral Monday'' civil disobedience and the broad range of conservative bills.

“I don't know that there is a state that has as many regressive policies on tap,” said Penda Hair, co-director of Advancement Project in Washington is quoted in the story.

A group of manufacturers are asking Gov. Pat McCrory and the legislature to restore funding to the state's recycling office and Solid Waste Trust Fund.

The manufacturers said the cut may save money but would “result in serious blows to the manufacturing base of tomorrow.''

“It's easy to understand that recycling saves trees and landfill space,” the industry said in a statement. “But recycling is as much about the economy as it is the environment. The modern manufacturing base depends on today's reclyclables to make tomorrow's consumer goods,a nd in turn creates something else the economy sorely needs: jobs.''

The state Senate passed its $20.6 billion budget along party lines, moving the plan on to the House for consideration.