Reporter Kari Travis has an in-depth Q&A with Rep. Nelson Dollar of Wake County. Among the questions to, and answers from, one of the top budget writers in the House:
Q: What makes you most proud in this budget? What is not in it that you regret the most?
A: I’m proud that we have a budget that is balanced, that is very responsible. [We have a budget] that we believe moves the state forward, that addresses and continues on our commitment to raise average teacher pay, that provides raises in both years for hard working state employees, and that eliminates the waiting list for … early childhood education — which is a tremendous investment. We are very pleased with this budget, that we have a balanced approach to continuing tax reform, putting that money back in the hands of working families and giving job creating businesses some tax relief — continuing down that path which we believe is quite important.
We believe that infrastructure is important. We continue to see a substantial increase in our transportation budget, and we have augmented that budget in order to provide funding to help modernize our … commercial airports where the federal government is no longer participating the way that it used to. That’s a key component to continuing to build North Carolina as a global player in the economy, and being able to draw in key investments to continue to … have the types of jobs and the type of economy we want to have in this state.
Certainly, it would be my preference to do more for our state employees. I’d like to do that, and certainly we want to continue to look at issues like mental health and provide the resources we need there to address those issues. Those are … a couple of areas we want to continue working on as we prepare for future budgets.
Read the entire Q&A here.
