Monday, February 14, 2011

NCGA: State of the State Tonight

Tonight, Governor Bev Perdue will give her state of the state address. This is an opportunity for her to give us some clues regarding what may be in her upcoming budget.

The good news for the governor was the release last week that the budget deficit had fallen to 2.7 billion, down from 3.7 billion. The difference came for an additional 700,000 in increased revenue, 200,000 in Medicaid savings (most likely tied to under utilization) and the remainder was found within state health plan savings and other program savings.

The legislature is also waiting to see what Governor Bev Perdue does with SB13-the bill that directed her to cut specific department spending in order to achieve an additional 400.000 in savings during this current fiscal year. Of the items targeted to be cut were the One NC Fund, Golden LEAF fund, and JDIG-three programs that the governor has stated bring jobs to NC through incentives.

While listening today we expect to hear her touch on several topics, education, jobs and hopefully health care. We will be watching, listening and reporting.

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