Latest / The SEANC View / Unpacking the Senate's Budget Proposal: Key Highlights and Reactions

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Unpacking the Senate's Budget Proposal: Key Highlights and Reactions · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, and welcome to this week's edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm your host, Jonathan Owens, Communications Director here at Scenic,
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the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
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Joined today by Executive Director Artis Watkins, Government Relations Director
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Suzanne Beasley, and Podcast Producer Sam Klein.
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Welcome, everyone. Hey, Jonathan. Thank you.
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Today is Wednesday, April 16th. We're in here a day earlier this week because Good Friday is Friday.
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Easter's coming up. We have a lot to get to this week, so let's just jump right in. Was it Monday?
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It was Monday. The Senate budget came out. It did.
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We call it the Senate budget, but it's not really the Senate's budget.
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It's the leadership's budget proposal, right?
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Because you can't really call it the Senate's budget because it's not passed.
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But I digress. You do digress.
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The Senate budget proposal. I was just thinking about that while I was posting
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about, you know, because you want to be accurate in your social media posts.
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And it's not technically the Senate's budget.
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Yeah, but anyway, I called it the Scenic's budget.
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So the... Definitely wasn't written by Scenic. It was not. It was not.
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So it called for a 1.25% raise for most state employees.
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A $3,000 bonus over two years for most employees.
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Nothing for retirees, no increase or bonus. Nothing, zip.
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Correctional officers would get another 5.25% raise, which with step increases would be 8.9% total.
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Probation and parole officers get an additional 2%. And their law enforcement,
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including officers at the state capitol, get an additional 5.25% raise.
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The budget also includes the establishment of the Division of Accountability,
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Value, and Efficiency, or DAVE, and allocates $6 million for that.
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What would that be used for, I guess, positions and
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Not exactly sure. No one's specified yet, but they did say in committee there
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would need to be more people added to the auditor's office to do this work.
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And they also mentioned AI, so I assume they would be purchasing some sort of
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technology that would help them do the work.
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But $6 million to work on this.
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Make a recommendation to the legislature, and for the legislature to do anything
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but rubber stamp it would mean they spend resources on their end looking into
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it to see if they believe this new staff is correct.
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So again, this is not efficient at the end of the day.
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It's just not. Look at something and make a recommendation, and either you just
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accept the recommendation or you have to look at it again from another angle,
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and what you've done is added $6 million more government to decide if you have
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too much government when you already have 20% plus vacancy rate in that government
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and you have much less government than you had 15 years ago if government is defined as positions.
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So we're adding people and stuff to figure out if we've got too much people and stuff.
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And the budget also eliminates vacant jobs by itself. It eliminates 850 jobs
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over two years without Dave's. Without Dave.
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You know, I think a lot of Senator Berger, I think he's an incredibly smart
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guy. I think he's a pretty rational guy. This is.
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I don't think fits the typical Senator Berger formula.
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It doesn't make sense. It's kind of messy. It makes me think that they're trying
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to get rid of those jobs to, as I've mentioned before on the podcast,
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say, we don't have any vacant positions. There's nothing wrong here.
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Yeah. Well, I mean, on the one hand, yeah.
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Yeah. This story says it still leaves 14,000 open jobs there.
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All right. But you got to think, OK, we know the economic situation is very
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uncertain for everyone in this country, including state budgets.
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But for all of us, we don't know.
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We wake up every day to see what the economy is going to look like today.
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What's happening? Or do we have tariffs? Do we have massive layoffs?
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Do we, what's happening?
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And so I don't know how states are doing budgets at all. But here's what I find most striking.
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We either are in a mess and we better tighten the belt.
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So if you're laying off 800 and some people, you're just getting rid of those
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positions when, again, you already have a ton less positions,
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but a ton more citizens than you used to, and you got a bunch of vacancies,
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that means things must be dire, right?
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That's the only way you would do that under those circumstances.
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We don't have any money, and we better prepare for economic Armageddon.
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But if we're doing that, why would we have all the things that are in the Senate
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budget that increase spending?
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There's so much, couple million here, five million here, and a lot of that's
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going to non-governmental entities, which who's going to look at that and make
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sure it's efficient and the taxpayers are being served by that?
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So I think state employees could feel a lot better about this kind of napalm
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approach to state government if everything had that approach.
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Like we're not spending anything extra, period, too bad.
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So that's why we're pushing so hard for, okay, if we're still spending,
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if it's still okay and we can add a bunch of stuff, if we think something's worthy of
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we're going to throw money at it, then you better put your people at the front
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of that line because nobody would operate a business without making sure they
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didn't take care of the people first because otherwise the customers will not
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get taken care of. And the customers are the citizens.
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Well, let's get back to the retirees because I know there was a considerable
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amount of disdain for the budget on our social media platforms.
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And you released a video last night that was Very informative.
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I even learned some things that kind of explain where we are and why this happens every year.
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Can you maybe touch on it a little bit? In a nutshell, a lot of people think
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state retirees have it made.
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They don't. We have one of the biggest systems in the country,
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one of the best funded in the country. But we give our retirees far less than the average state.
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And on top of that, we haven't given a COLA in so many years.
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Nobody can remember when, but three-quarters of the states do give COLAs to their folks.
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So it's not as though this is just the way it is and we need to be as cautious as everyone else.
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We're really mistreating our retirees compared to other states.
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And the part I didn't have time for in that video is that unless somebody's
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wondering, well, maybe the employees here didn't put as much into their retirement
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as in other states. I looked that up too.
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21 states, their employees put in more than ours.
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Ours put in 6% every month, always have.
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But that means 28 states put in less, and in some cases far,
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far less, per month to their retirement than our folks.
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So that isn't the answer. Yeah. Yeah. Our folks are right in the middle on what
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they put in, but way down the bottom on what they get.
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I recommend everyone go watch that video because I like the way you laid it out. You started.
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We are the biggest and baddest, one of the biggest and baddest systems in the whole country.
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And when employees' checks are first figured, when they first retire,
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they already start, what, 10% below the national average on what their checks.
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Yeah. On the formula that people use.
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Yeah. You're already 10%. You didn't like the video. You said my face was distorted.
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And it was. We got to work on the technology. But it wasn't.
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He thought it was something with the camera. It wasn't. It's just my face.
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No, I was just trying to get you a new camera. I was trying to get you a new
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phone. Oh, okay. That's why we got you a ring light.
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A ring light. There isn't enough ring light. But that was the thing that I learned
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the whole part about. They start from behind.
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And then they don't get, Cole, as you pointed out, that most, what, three quarters?
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75%. 75% get 3% every year. Yeah, they start behind and then they get further
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and further and further behind.
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Yeah. I feel like this is just making me angry because I'm thinking about if
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it were my money, I'm contributing 6% every single month the whole entire time I'm working.
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And then I'm sitting there once I'm retired thinking I'm going to get that money
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back. It's going to come back in and get me adjusted to what life costs right now. Yeah.
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And then you're just sitting there and you're like, where is my money?
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And sometimes the public thinks this is some kind of gift to retire.
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They funded their own retirement in large part.
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The state's been putting in impressive amounts in recent years simply because
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the state had taken a complete holiday at one point, didn't put in zip,
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and then put in very tiny amounts for way too long a period of time.
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So this is not a gift. This is something retirees invested in themselves in
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and that they took less pay than they would have in the private sector to get.
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So make no mistake, this isn't any kind of gift from the public to these retirees. That's crazy.
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So where does the Senate budget go from here? I guess this week you've had a lot of appropriations.
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Yes, obviously here in the office with you guys. But when I left the building
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just a little while ago, it was being debated on the Senate floor.
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So they'll vote on it today. Final vote will be tomorrow.
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Yeah. So it'll be done by, they said by Easter, I guess they're right.
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Yep. Right. And next up is the House.
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We have any information on when that will come down? Have not heard any. Okay.
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Have not heard any date specific. You know, we haven't heard any specifics about the House anyway.
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We do know that Speaker Hall had told the media back when Governor Stein's budget
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came out that they would do better than Governor Stein.
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So we'll wait to see what's in the House budget for our folks.
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And that was about state employees.
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Yeah, that was for Agnes State employees. About retirees, we'll have to see.
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Okay. Is there any appetite for changing the whole click thing you were talking about, the initial?
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I don't know. I mean, Suzanne. Maybe. We've had some kind of— Like,
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what is— It's still money.
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It's still recurring money, right? But it is, but it's not near as much.
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And it would pay off in terms of it benefits everybody, active employees and retirees.
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So if you want to keep people, it's a move towards it.
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And we've talked with our retiree
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council here at Scenic about maybe focusing more in that direction.
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So, yeah, that may be our next route to something meaningful for our folks.
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So another part of the Senate's budget also came up in committee this week.
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The House Bill 92. House Bill 92, our favorite Bitcoin bill, right?
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So that language was in the Senate's budget along with the North Carolina Investment
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Authority language, right, to establish that.
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But it did change. Can you tell us a little bit about that? So it did change,
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and it was heard in pensions and retirement this morning.
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If y'all remember, the original language had a cap of 10% of the pension funds
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could be invested into digital assets.
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So Scenic worked hard on this bill. The bill got pulled.
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We've had conversations with Speaker Hall and his staff.
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You know, obviously the other key legislators, the sponsors.
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Treasurer Briner and Scenic leadership.
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And we reached a compromise. So that compromise came in the form of a PCS in
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committee today. That's a preferred committee substitute. When language is changed
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in a bill, there has to be a preferred committee substitute.
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And it lowered that cap to 5%.
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And there's also a provision in there about studying and reporting.
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Reporting back how it was formed. Yeah, so we obviously are definitely supportive of that.
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And you did speak in front of the committee, and you mentioned that Scenic has
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had discussions with this, with the Speaker.
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Yeah, we had a great conversation with Speaker Hall, Neil Inman,
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his chief of staff, a couple other staffers.
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So he knew our concerns, and he very much wanted to work with us, and we did.
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So, you know, we've come to a compromise. And I think that we have heard from
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our members, too, that we have our own heartburn about this,
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but it seems like they really are.
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Well, I mean, they lit up. Nobody put out a call to action.
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You know, our retirees lit up. And that's understandable. It is.
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There are legislators who are lit up over it.
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Yeah. But I think one of the things you brought up in the committee that is
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important is that the treasurer will be tasked with doing these investments.
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And if he loses $6 billion of our money, we'll come after him.
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I mean, we'll hold him accountable and the voters will, too.
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And he actually said in committee today that he wouldn't invest that much money
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in these kind of investments.
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I mean, he wouldn't suggest anyone else do it either. So it was good to hear
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that, you know, openly in committee.
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So, yes, everyone had a visceral reaction to this.
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And, you know, some people think that's just ignorance of what crypto investing is all about.
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Other people think it's generational. I don't think it's either one of those
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things. I think it's, look, this is a high risk. high reward thing.
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And traditionally, those can be kind of fun with play money,
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but with a pension fund, people have a visceral reaction to high risk,
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high reward. They want something.
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Well, and I think somebody even said this in committee. We've said it for years.
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If you just put it in a Vanguard mutual fund and rocked on, you'd do really well.
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But there's no question that everyone has the same goal of making more in this system.
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So there will be undistributed gains, meaning profit from your investments that
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you can give to the members of the system, the retirees. In the form of COLAs.
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In the form of COLAs or clicks in the formula, right.
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So if there is this very profound belief among a lot of public leaders that
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if we do this, we're going to clean up and we'll have more and we can distribute that out.
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It's a calculated risk after reasonable limitations have been put on this thing.
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Cut it from 10 to up to five. And the treasurer says, I'm not even going to
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put the five, like Suzanne said.
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And then you've got, let's then come back and look at it and see how it did after we do that.
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Once you got that, our leadership internally and scenic in terms of our retiree
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council and our president and our executive committee talked about this a couple weeks ago.
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At that point, that's enough to give just not to be a stamp of no.
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Scenic cannot just be a stamp of no on anything that's different, even if we just hate it.
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If there are reasonable limitations and safeguards put in place.
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Then OK. And so, you know, I don't think the speaker or anyone else intended
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to hurt anybody. I think he genuinely believes, hey, this can help the system.
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I think Treasurer Briner has shown so far that he is a really reasonable and
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careful person who is going to protect the members' money.
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And I think that everybody coming to the table and coming to something reasonable is huge.
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It is huge. And you and I were talking, too, that this is a bit of a leap of
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faith. And now it's up to the legislature to show retirees and active employees,
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you know, that there's a reason to have that faith and, you know,
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provide for them in the budget.
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Yeah, I guess I just keep coming back to the ultimate judge on whether it's
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successful or not would be the voters, right? Because the treasurer is elected.
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That's right. So that's what you usually want in government.
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That's right. Anything else we want to talk about before we get out of here?
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Oh, we wanted to talk a little bit about, we touched on it a little bit,
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but the reactions that we get on our social media.
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Oh, gosh, yeah. And the budget time is always lit.
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I won't say it's the worst. Lots of emotion. Lots of emotion.
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Yeah, we do want some interaction, though. You know, I mean.
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Absolutely. People need to get emotional.
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Yeah. And think. I think there's a lot of times when we're out of session and
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that we were kind of begging for a little excitement.
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Yeah, something new to post.
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Well, there's plenty of it right now. Right now, it is lit, as you say.
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It's funny that the Democrats or the liberal folks will say that we're too conservative
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and the conservative folks will say that we're too liberal. That's always been the case.
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It really does play out like that, you know, and it's. And we are anything but partisan.
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We are anything but partisan. Right. I mean, politically, we're all over the
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map in terms of it because it's issue driven by our members. That's right.
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And and again, our members are reasonable people. So sometimes they take a position,
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study that position, study alternatives to that position, debate that and come
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up with a new position. Yeah.
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They do it right, you know, and that happens. But, yeah, people do get mad at us from all sides.
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And the one that kind of irks me the most is when folks are like,
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this proves that CNIC doesn't do anything for us.
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Like, you're on our Facebook page.
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Clearly we're doing something for you. Well, I get that because they're angry
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and they're upset and they feel like they've really gotten the shaft as state employees.
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And you have to have somebody to lash out at and blame. And I get that.
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And they're really not going to call a legislator and chew them out and say. Absolutely not.
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And, well, frankly, we don't want to. My generation will. Well,
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your generation. Well, maybe. My generation will. Would they even.
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They're not going to call anybody. You might text them. Oh, no.
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They filled one of the U.S.
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Senators' mailbox with phone calls, just cussing him out, screaming at him.
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But that wasn't just your generation, hon.
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It was a lot of my generation. They were posting videos of themselves calling
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him over TikTok. I call it the TikTok.
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Sam, but would they over most anything else? If they knew more about it, I think they would.
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Well, that's why we're here. But to be clear, we don't want anybody calling
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and cussing anyone else. But first of all, ineffective.
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Secondly, rude. We did try this time to give them outlet. And I think it was
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a little bit successful.
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I set up an action for folks that if they really wanted to speak out,
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they could contact their senator really easily.
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And we've actually gotten a lot of constructive emails because I can read them.
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I don't know if they know that or not.
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But they've been really good. And they're not form emails. You know,
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it's okay to send 30,000 forum emails, but nobody's going to read them.
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You should make a Discord server that just goes into the void because those exist.
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You just type whatever you want and it goes off into the void of none of the stuff.
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And people can just yell and scream and cuss. Somebody wants to know the person
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they're yelling at heard it. Yeah.
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But the thing is, it's okay for people to get angry with us.
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We're here to be whatever people need us to be.
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An advocate, a shoulder to cry on, a sounding board. The problem is yelling
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at us isn't going to change the budget.
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And saying that we don't do anything, that's an opinion. You can hold whatever opinion you want.
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But my guess is nine times out of ten, those probably aren't people who are
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really engaged and have any awareness through our normal communications with
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our membership. What's being stopped on their behalf?
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What's being done on their behalf? But Sam, when you mentioned TikTok.
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That really was a very effective grassroots lobby.
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Oh, yeah. Less than 14 hours after the ban was official, it was back because everyone was so mad.
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But I bet a lot of people tried to contact TikTok and got mad at them.
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But isn't there talk about it coming back, right? Because of the whole tariffs and things?
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I mean, I don't know. I'm not versed in the way. Yeah, just got a...
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Our 75-day extension is gone. I don't know how it still exists.
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I don't know how it's still on American iPhones. and there is no blocking. Yeah. Yeah.
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I think there was something worked out. It's just politically.
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I think something might have happened with Meta because now TikTok has been
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asking me, would you like to be able to see your Facebook friends on TikTok?
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Yeah, probably. I think there's some Meta intertwining in there now.
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Yeah. So. But it works. But speaking of TikTok, you've been a celebrity this week on the TikTok.
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Both of you have. We've done awesome on our videos.
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A lot more people look at that thing than I realize. Who knew?
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You got like 6,000 views on one of those. Is that a lot? That's how many followers I have.
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Oh, it's not a lot then. I'm throwing the gauntlet down over there.
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We need to have her just do the video. I was going to say, Sam,
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you just got recruited. Yeah, for real. You're picking up a job.
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Not on my personal TikTok.
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No. Yep. Let's take over Sam's personal TikTok. Wherever it has to be.
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Eminent domain. It was interesting, too, that our Facebook Reels got just as
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many as TikTok, if not more.
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Well, people like those little short, digestible. I think it kind of shows that
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our members are on, obviously, our members are on us, but more than TikTok.
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But both of them, they both are doing great jobs. Thank you, John.
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It also makes sense why a lot of them wouldn't be on TikTok necessarily because didn't the state also?
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You're not allowed to have TikTok on a employee phone.
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Oh, they're on it at home. Yeah. Yes. on their phone. They're definitely seeing it there.
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Well, that was the social media minute with Scenic. Now it's time for John's
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Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
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John's Wacky Weird Question of the Week.
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Music.
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So I purposefully did not tell you guys what this question was because I want
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a real, raw, visceral reaction.
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I'm scared. Gosh. I don't know if that's the right word, actually.
21:08
But Easter is upon us, right?
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This weekend how do y'all feel about cadbury eggs ew caramel filled cadbury
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eggs are absolutely delicious really the caramel filled ones yes what are the
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other the others are like a custard it's a marshmallow cream fluff it's gross
21:28
have you ever eaten like when you were a kid did you eat them
21:32
Yeah, I tried one. That's how I don't like them. Yeah. It's just ew.
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My aunt loved them and was like, ew.
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Like people actually, I think it's like an English thing. Like those little
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chocolate-covered cherries with the syrup stuff in it. Cadbury is a British brand.
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Yeah, so it reminds me of that quote from So I Merited, Axe Murderer,
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where he says that all Scottish food is based on a dare.
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I wouldn't be surprised. It just seems like that's a kind of gross.
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Scottish food rocks. But you know what's better in an all-American and 4th of July? Woo. Woo.
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You know what's better? The Reese's egg. Reese's egg. The Reese's egg shall live.
22:08
There is more peanut butter in that. There are. Yeah. There is. Yeah.
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And you can get them really cheap right after you're so good.
22:13
I like the double bubble eggs that come in a carton and they're little eggs
22:17
that are bubblegum. Oh, yeah. Those are good.
22:20
And you can get them in like a carton, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah. I'm big. I like the cat. What about, what's the one with the?
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Peeps. Peeps. I like peeps, too. What about y'all?
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No? Yeah. No, no. Okay. I thought those must be the most unhealthy little bits
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of chemical fluff that existed, but the Yuka app was very instructive on that.
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I actually looked recently. I had no interest in eating them. Just not my jam.
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However, y'all, it's not. Like, random candy is way, way, way,
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way, way worse. Yeah, it's mostly air, right?
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Mostly air and sugar. Maybe so. Marshmallow and sugar. What is the Yuka app?
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We need to. The Yuka app. Man.
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You can scan anything in that app. You can scan your skin care,
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your hair care, your food.
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It'll tell you if there's any chemicals in it that are not good for you.
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Hazardous additives, non-hazardous. I don't even go that far.
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I just scan it if it says poor, poor
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quality. Oh, I want to know about the additives. I got to get on this.
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Because it'll say poor, average, good, great quality. Y-U-K-A.
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Y-U-K-A. Yeah, Y-U-K ain't not Y-U-K. And this segment's not sponsored by Yuka,
23:29
but hey man, Yuka, if you're out there. I gotta say something to you guys there.
23:33
Kind of sounds like a Chinese app.
23:37
I think they're watching you through this Yuka app. Oh, please.
23:41
But they're watching you all the time.
23:43
They're in my phone. They're not watching much. What are y'all doing?
23:47
But I will tell you, peeps on the Yuka were shocking.
23:51
I like peeps. I didn't like peeps when I was growing up. I saw someone make
23:54
s'mores with them. So they're basically marshmallow on the inside.
23:58
But the outside texture is what gets me. Yeah, can't bite through that crispy
24:01
sugar. It's a lot of sugar.
24:05
So what are y'all doing this weekend for Easter? Anything cool? Girls' Day.
24:10
Oh, yeah. Brunch with my girls. There needs to be like a Galentine's version
24:14
for Easter. That's kind of what this is.
24:17
I think we're going to the beach. We usually just go to the beach because my
24:20
mom lives down there. But are you going to have peeps?
24:23
Oh, yeah, we'll definitely have peeps. We'll stop it. And Reese's eggs.
24:25
Yeah, I think our kids are too old to enjoy the magic of Easter. No, they're not.
24:31
I'm like John. I enjoy the magic of the day after Easter when those Reese's eggs go on sale.
24:36
And this segment is also not sponsored by Reese's, but again.
24:39
It could be. But it is sponsored by peeps if they want to throw us some peeps.
24:43
Right. We gave them a lot of attention. We should get those peep pillows so
24:48
that we can put them on the couch.
24:49
They're doing some peep sponsors. But let's talk about what state employees
24:53
are doing on Easter. A bunch of them. Working.
24:55
Working, yes. And we appreciate that. It seems like, I mean,
24:59
it is. Every holiday we post.
25:01
I mean, we probably post the same thing every holiday, but it's always true
25:04
that people are working. It doesn't change.
25:07
It's important to remind people. While you're hunting your eggs,
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someone is keeping you safe.
25:13
Yeah. Some people's kids are looking at their Easter basket while mom or dad
25:17
are at work taking care of us, the citizens.
25:20
So thank you to everybody that's doing that, like John said.
25:24
We appreciate you. Yeah. And if you're a hater on state employees,
25:28
knock it off for one weekend while they serve you on a holiday.
25:32
Or just direct it at us on our Facebook page. Yeah, that's fine.
25:35
Well, that's a good place to end. Thank you all for joining us this week,
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and have a great Easter. Bye.
25:42
Music.