“The long awaited state budget that our legislators passed today includes very welcome investments in child care, which is urgently needed and long overdue. Our state’s moms especially applaud the new statewide child care subsidy reimbursement rate floor because it offers promise to finally address our child care crisis, which has long been undermining the economic security of families, the success of businesses, and the fiscal health of our state. This new floor will help stabilize North Carolina’s child care infrastructure, especially in rural communities that have historically received lower reimbursement rates. That will help give children their best possible start, help families make ends meet in the face of our care and affordability crises, and help set up small businesses to succeed. We are also grateful the new budget includes teacher and state employee raises, rate increases for personal care services for medically fragile and disabled children and adults, improvements to maternal health, and a fix to a critical error in the Medicaid rebase bill (HB696) that would have denied Medicaid coverage for 27,000 legally eligible pregnant immigrant women and children.

“We applaud lawmakers for including these and other provisions that support the immediate and urgent needs of North Carolina families and thank all those who championed these investments. But we are deeply concerned by the tax policy choices in the budget, specifically the continued plan to eliminate the corporate income tax rate and the continued reduction of the personal income tax rate, which will disproportionately benefit the wealthy few. These choices will starve the state of much-needed revenue and significantly limit our ability to meet the needs of families and communities at this time when rising costs are causing great harm.

“In addition, the shift of new federal cost-sharing requirements for SNAP onto local governments at the same time our General Assembly seeks to restrict the ability of local governments to raise revenue through property taxes creates a perfect storm that puts 1.4 million North Carolinians at risk of losing essential food assistance. Taking away flexibility around tax decisions can undermine the ability of children and communities to thrive and risks leaving our state vulnerable to rising costs and the next disaster or emergency. 

“So while we celebrate the much needed investments in the budget that legislators passed today, we urge them to rethink and reject policies that will lock in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy while taking away the flexibility decisionmakers may need in the future to meet the needs of families.”