Good Tuesday morning. The budget haggling formally begins today. Perdue to sign new benefits for slain cops' families. Bullying in committee. Sex Ed on the floor.
BIRTHDAYS: Sen. Doug Berger is 49; Rep. Rick Glazier is 54.
The Senate last night formally rejected the House's $18.6 billion budget, complete with its $780 million in new taxes, so it's deal making time in conference committee. Budget writers from the House and Senate have already begun what will become marathon sessions in a corner conference room on the sixth floor of the Legislative Office Building. Senate Conferees began poring over the House's spending plan yesterday afternoon, receiving stacks of documents still warm from the printer.
The controversial anti-bullying bill, which includes protection for gay students, is slated for a House judiciary committee at 10 a.m. More debate and division related to sex is due in the afternoon when the "Healthy Youth Act," the euphemistic title for the sex education bill, is on the Senate floor calendar.
Gov. Beverly Perdue has scheduled a formal signing in the Old House Chamber in the capitol for a bill providing new benefits for the families of law enforcement officers with 15 years or more of service who died in the line of duty.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ONE-LINERS: The Commission for Public Health is holding a hearing regarding the definition of solid waste.
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Re: Budgets, bullying, birds and bees
Rob Schofield at NC Policy Watch put both bills into perspective in his recent column.