Budget standoff: Senate blinks

They didn't even get close to the deadline.

Democratic Senate leaders agreed to a House demand to put a July 15 expiration on a temporary spending bill.

The bill allows state government to keep operating after the current fiscal year's budget ends at midnight. Under the temporary bill, agencies can keep spending at a level of 85 percent of the current year's budget. The stopgap authority was needed because the House and Senate are still working on a compromise budget for the next fiscal year.

Senate Democrats wanted no deadline on the temporary bill so that, if they don't have a new budget in two weeks, they don't have to stop negotiating to pass another temporary spending bill. House Democrats wanted a deadline to help force a deal -- a "drop dead" date, said Sen. Linda Garrou, a Winston-Salem Democrat and appropriations committee co-chair.

"I may just drop dead by that point," Garrou joked, "if we don't get something done." 

What had appeared a potential standoff that could take the state to the brink of a government shutdown instead ended as a brief, debate-less vote -- 35 5o 13 -- to agree with the House.