Governor says education, law enforcement, Medicaid, and Western North Carolina recovery funding outweighed objections to final spending plan.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Josh Stein on Tuesday signed North Carolina’s $34.4 billion state budget into law, ending more than two years without a comprehensive spending plan and authorizing another $700 million for Hurricane Helene recovery, including major investments in rebuilding communities across Western North Carolina.
The signing concludes months of negotiations between Stein and the Republican-controlled General Assembly. While the Democratic governor sharply criticized several policy provisions included in the final legislation, he said the budget’s investments in teacher pay, public safety, Medicaid and disaster recovery made signing the measure the better option.
Standing alongside teachers, law enforcement officers, and other public servants, Stein described the budget as evidence that divided government can still produce bipartisan results.
“North Carolinians expect their elected officials to come together across our differences to deliver for people,” Stein said. He pointed to the largest starting teacher pay raise in nearly 50 years, significant raises for state law enforcement officers, bonuses for local officers, full Medicaid funding and continued Hurricane Helene recovery as the legislation’s most significant accomplishments.
For Western North Carolina, the budget provides another $700 million in disaster recovery funding. The package includes $450 million for the state’s required federal disaster match and additional funding for local government infrastructure, temporary housing assistance, private road and bridge repairs, housing reconstruction, flood warning systems, landslide mapping, wildfire response and long-term recovery organizations.
Stein said the legislation also funds community colleges, child care subsidies, the Division of Motor Vehicles, cybersecurity initiatives, PFAS and drinking water remediation, farmland preservation and a new state veterans home. He also highlighted lawmakers’ decision to repeal the state’s electricity sales tax exemption for data centers, arguing taxpayers should no longer subsidize the industry’s energy consumption.
The governor, however, spent much of his remarks outlining what he called serious shortcomings in the budget.
He criticized lawmakers for eliminating more than 1,000 state government positions, saying the reductions would make it more difficult to provide health, safety and other public services. He also objected to provisions affecting executive branch authority, local governments and several state offices.
“This budget has real flaws,” Stein said. “The legislature is slashing more than 1,000 state government positions, making it harder for us to meet the people’s health and safety needs.” He also said the legislation contains provisions he believes are unconstitutional and unnecessarily politicize state government.
The positions, lawmakers said, are to reallocate funds for other positions. It comes after a bombshell report from state auditor Dave Boliek.
The State Employees Association said the long-term vacancies were mostly due to low pay.
The 661-page performance audit released in January showed, as of Aug. 6, there were 8,846 long-term vacancies across 46 state agencies, totaling $1.04 billion in lapsed salary.
Stein also argued that many state employees still are not receiving raises that keep pace with inflation and said North Carolina continues to lag neighboring states in teacher, correctional officer, and state employee compensation despite the increases included in the budget.
Even with those concerns, Stein said the legislation reflected meaningful compromise.
“The Legislature has accepted many of my big-ticket budget recommendations,” Stein said, adding that democracy “has always run on compromise for the common good.”
The governor’s signature ends one of the state’s longest budget stalemates in recent history. North Carolina had operated without a newly enacted comprehensive budget since 2023, relying instead on continuing appropriations, mini-budgets and targeted spending bills while negotiations continued.
The final budget received bipartisan support, passing the Senate 35-10 and the House 88-21 before reaching the governor’s desk.
No Republicans were against in the Senate, but three took excused absences. In the House, no Republicans were against, and six took excused absences. Among Democrats, eight in the Senate and 21 in the House voted for the bill. Two unaffiliated members in the House, formerly Democrats, also voted to pass the budget.
The spending plan provides teachers, state employees, and law enforcement pay raises, fully funds Medicaid for the fiscal year, continues scheduled income tax reductions, and authorizes billions in state spending. For communities still rebuilding from Hurricane Helene nearly two years after the storm, it also represents the latest—and one of the largest—state investments intended to close remaining recovery gaps.
In addition to signing Senate Bill 257, the state budget, Stein also signed House Bill 56, which makes technical corrections to North Carolina’s budget law.
As my colleague Alan Wooten at The Center Square wrote,
“Stein signing the budget is a reversal from his good friend and predecessor, U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper.
Before Tuesday, North Carolina had just one two-year state budget signed into law in the last 3,946 days. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory on Sept. 18, 2015, signed the biennial state budget into law, and on July 14, 2016, signed the budget adjustments into law.
Cooper’s lone signature on a two-year budget was 1,693 days ago for the 2021-22 spending plan. The last appropriation he signed was a midterm adjustment the next year in 2022.
Cooper vetoed two-year budgets for 2017-18 and 2019-20, and midterm adjustments in 2018 and 2024. The 2017-18 plan veto was overridden.
Cooper allowed a two-year budget to become law without his signature (2023-24) in his long-sought request for Medicaid expansion. That spending plan was active through June 30, 2025.
Interestingly, Cooper is campaigning for U.S. Senate as a moderate who has worked across the aisle in bipartisan negotiation. In addition to gridlock of state budgets, on multiple occasions he filed litigation to challenge laws where his veto fell to overrides.
The only other vetoes of previous appropriations in state history were in June 2012 (Modify 2011 Appropriations Act, House Bill 950) and June 2011 (Appropriations Act of 2011, House Bill 200), each by Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue.
Each of Perdue’s vetoes were overridden.”
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