VOLUME 8 ISSUE 31
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WWW.NSJONLINE.COM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
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BRIEF this week
National poll finds Trump ahead of Biden by 10 points Washington, D.C. A recent national poll found former President Donald Trump with a 10-point lead over President Joe Biden in a head-to-head rematch of the 2020 election. According to a Washington Post-ABC poll taken Sept. 1520 from a random national sample of 1,006 adults, Trump led Biden 52% to 42% with a four-point margin of error. The same poll found Trump leading 49% to 43% in May. The poll also asked whether people approved of Trump’s performance as president with 48% approving and 49% disapproving. NSJ STAFF
Flying into fall Left, a butterfly statue sits in front of a view of the mountains Saturday during the second annual Mountain Monarch Festival at Gorges State Park in Transylvania County. Top right, Heyward Douglass of the Foothills Trail Conservancy gives a presentation about the migration patterns of monarch butterflies to Michoacan, Mexico, on Saturday during the second annual Mountain Monarch Festival at Gorges State Park in Transylvania County. Bottom right, Melinda Russek showcases the art of students from Summit Charter School on Saturday during the second annual Mountain Monarch Festival at Gorges State Park in Transylvania County.
DeSantis, Newsom to go head-to-head in November Fox News debate New York Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will take time out from debating fellow Republicans in two months to take on a Democrat, California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Fox News said Monday that the two politicians will appear in a 90-minute debate on Nov. 30 in Georgia. Sean Hannity will be the moderator, and it is airing on Fox News Channel in Hannity’s 9 p.m. Eastern time slot. DeSantis is scheduled to appear in the second debate of Republican candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination this week at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Medicaid Expansion will begin Dec. 1, Cooper announces Raleigh Gov. Roy Cooper and N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley announced Monday that Medicaid Expansion will launch on Dec. 1, 2023. Medicaid Expansion increases the eligible population to adults aged 1964 who have incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Beneficiaries will get care the same way as existing Medicaid beneficiaries and be eligible for the same benefits and copays as other nondisabled adults already in Medicaid. “Finally expanding Medicaid in North Carolina is a monumental achievement that will extend health insurance to people who need it,” said Cooper. North Carolina is now the 41st state to expand Medicaid. NSJ STAFF
PHOTOS BY IZZY LAVALETTE | NORTH STATE JOURNAL
State budget boasts new tax relief By Matt Mercer North State Journal
What’s in the state budget for K-12 education? Quite a lot By A.P. Dillon North State Journal RALEIGH — Late on Sept. 19, Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) held an impromptu press conference to announce a budget deal had been reached and three days later, the bill went to the governor. In a statement, Cooper said the budget would go into effect without his signature, which will be on Oct. 2. The total spending in House Bill 259, “The 2023 Appropriations Act,” comes in at $29.8 billion in FY 2023-24 and $30.9 billion in FY 2024-25. Education spending in the budget includes $17.3 billion in FY 2023-24 and $17.9
billion in FY 2024-25. The spending amounts each year are a 6.1% and 9.5% increase, respectively, over the spending in corresponding years of the previous budget. School choice School choice, a centerpiece of the budget’s education funding, includes the expansion of the popular Opportunity Scholarship Program to all students in the state. Funding is based on a sliding scale of household income level with funding priority for the lowest-income families. All eligible students will get at least an amount of up to 45% of the average state per-puSee EDUCATION, page A2
RALEIGH — Building on a decade of reform, state Republicans once again are reducing taxes on North Carolinians with the 2023-25 spending plan. “It’s been over a decade since voters entrusted Republicans to manage the state’s finances, and our formula of low taxes, responsible spending, and reasonable regulations works,” said Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) last week in a statement. “This two-year budget carefully considers our state’s past successes, our current needs, and the financial resources we have at our disposal,” Rates for the state personal income tax, which make up the majority of revenue the state receives each year, will inch down again. Effective in 2024, the rate’s scheduled drop from 4.75% to 4.6% in 2024 will accelerate to 4.5% instead. Rates for the following years will come down quicker, going from 4.5% in 2024 to 4.25% in 2025, and down to 3.99% after 2025. The new rates amount to a $1.2 billion tax cut for families and businesses over the next two years, according to the conference report fund projections. That, though, is only part of the tax cut package. Language in the budget
calls for the tax rates to automatically lower by one-half of a percentage point down to 2.49% if revenue targets are met. Those targets are due to be reported by the Office of the State Controller in August for the succeeding year. “We continue the conservative governance that has made North Carolina a state we can all be proud to live in,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Sen. Brent Jackson (R-Sampson) said of the budget. “The sensible spending and healthy tax returns make for a strong, lean budget that doesn’t break the bank. As the national economy remains fraught with uncertainty, we took a cautious approach to make sure that North Carolina is prepared for whatever may come.” In addition, changes to the state franchise tax will cap the tax rate on the first million of income of C corporation tax base at $500. Sales tax exemptions will continue in several areas such as continuing care retirement communities and professional motorsports. Other items now exempt are breast pumps, breast pump collection, and storage supplies, repair and replacement parts. “I can’t think of a state budget that does as much for infrastructure, education, and health care as this one — all See BUDGET, page A8
State superintendent lays out student achievement concerns, discusses recent charter board policy By A.P. Dillon North State Journal RALEIGH —North Carolina State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said she will continue to focus on helping students overcome pandemic learning loss and is concerned with the N.C. State Board of Education’s recent end-run around the new law shifting powers to the Charter School Review Board, she said in an interview with North State Journal. Student testing and school accountability data for the previous school year were released at the September meeting of the state Board of Education, and the data showed students were still seeing achievement and grade-level proficiency
gains but had not yet reached pre-pandemic levels. “My biggest concerns are middle grades math and middle grades literacy,” Truitt said, noting there were gains in every subject in every subgroup of students except for English II. “We saw no backward movement, and we saw a 3.8% gain in fourth-grade literacy, which is — that’s an incredible gain.” “But here’s what needs to happen — we’re talking about gains that are not even getting us back to pre-pandemic levels,” she added. “We’re almost there but not quite. And we’re talking about numbers that weren’t even great to begin with, right? We’re still talking about proficiency rates less than 50%. Even so, gains are
good, and certainly we want to see forward progress and not moving backward.” Before the pandemic, 67% of eighth graders in North Carolina prior to beginning ninth grade were not reading proficiently. She also emphasized that just 14% of African American eighth graders were reading proficiently when they started ninth grade, and that math scores looked similar. “We have already gotten the state on the right trajectory with literacy, but we cannot ignore our middle grades teachers with [literacy] professional development,” said Truitt. Truitt told North State Journal her agency will be augmenting literacy professional development for teachers by bringing “a statewide ini-
tiative to the legislature in the short session that will provide professional development for all middle grades content area teachers.” When it comes to improving math achievement, Truitt said that, like reading, math issues predate the pandemic and there has to be a shift in thinking about math as a subject. “In order to tackle math, we have to shed some legaSee TRUITT, page A2
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