The legislature finally adjourned at 4:18 a.m. on Wednesday morning, but not before passing a slew of bills in the wee hours in a wild night that had legislators singing bipartisan duets, dancing in the aisles and tossing around a football in the Senate chamber.

One note of information that came from the flurry of bills passed in the marathon session came in the technical corrections bill. Language was added to clarify that the $750 bonus check will be distributed separately from payroll. It will be cut as its own check and will be released by Dec. 21. 

As the session drew to a close, SEANC lobbyists kept a watchful eye out to make sure other policies harmful to state employees did not get slipped into unrelated bills. Thankfully, nothing surprising was incorporated into the infrastructure bond bill and the Medicaid reform bill, but these two bills will have serious implications for state employees.

The adjournment resolution calls for the short session to convene on April 25, 2016. With legislators (thankfully) out of town for the year, this week we take a look back at the 2015 session for state employees.

The state budget

After the longest negotiation in 13 years, the House and Senate finally agreed to a state budget that provided just a $750 bonus for state employees – a one-time payment that will have no lasting effect on salaries. The legislature also decided not to call for a cost-of-living adjustment for retirees even though investment gains would fund a one-percent increase.

The House, thanks to EMPAC Legislator of the Year Rep. Nelson Dollar (R-Wake), had proposed a 2-percent pay increase and 40 hours of bonus leave for active employees and a 2-percent cost-of-living adjustment for retirees. Neither the Senate’s plan nor the governor’s plan included raises at all. SEANC pushes for salary increases rather than bonuses because increases have positive effects on not only pay in the future but also retirement benefits. The bonus leave was also cut.

The budget:

• Includes a $750 one-time bonus for state employees and teachers. No COLAs or bonus leave, which were part of the House’s original proposal.
• Includes salary increases for community college employees at the discretion of the system.
• Includes Step increase and market based salary increase for state troopers, magistrates and court personnel.
• Includes custody-level pay adjustment for some correctional officers. SEANC has yet to see the final plan for this.
• Includes funding for the retirement system.
• Doubles wellness premium surcharges on State Health Plan.
• Maintains State Health Plan benefits for 2016, but will likely lead to cuts in 2017.
• Raises teacher starting salary to $35,000.
• Includes funding of teaching assistant positions at 2014-15 levels.
• Contains no prison closures.
• Includes start-up funding for Samarcand Training Academy.
• Funds community corrections safety equipment and electronic monitoring.
• Moves the N.C. Zoo, N.C. Aquariums, state parks and other state attractions to the Department of Cultural Resources, which will now be called the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources will now be called the Department of Environmental Quality.
• Creates cabinet-level agencies to oversee Information Technology and Veterans’ Affairs.

Human Resources Act changes 

Perhaps the biggest victory of all for SEANC this session was the mitigation of House Bill 495, which would have made several harmful changes to the State Human Resources Act.

The bill, HB 495, is a pet project of Gov. McCrory and his State Human Resources Director Neal Alexander. SEANC had serious problems with the bill since it was changed in a House committee in May from a simple technical corrections bill to include changes to due process, hiring and RIF rights procedures and political hirings provisions.

SEANC was able to negotiate changes and amend parts of the bill, but serious problems remained. SEANC lobbyists pressed House members not to concur with the bill. The House voted unanimously not to concur with the Senate’s version of the bill, meaning a conference committee would have to settle the differences before it could be signed by the governor.

The conference committee met and H495 passed in a form much less harmful to state employees.

DOT Jobs

Near the beginning of the session, there was a threat to cut the gas tax from 37.5 cents to 35 cents and pay for that cut by eliminating 500 filled and 50 vacant jobs in the Department of Transportation. SEANC lobbyists worked with legislators like Rep. Paul Stam (R-Wake) who proposed a successful amendment to remove the job cuts from the bill. Stam also announced this week he would not seek re-election.

Then the Senate proposed cutting 56 administrative jobs in its budget. Members from DOT showed up at the legislature to successfully lobby against the job cuts.

The final budget includes 50 identified jobs being cut in the final budget, 29 being from the senate budget list (originally listing 56) and the 21 jobs left up to the agency to cut with applicable vacant jobs to be cut as well – meaning if there are vacant jobs open in that same particular unit or division as the filled position they are wanting to cut they must cut the vacant job as well. 

Also, the budget requests that DOT conduct a study to find ways to cut 10 percent of the overall agency by next session. Originally, lawmakers requested that DOT just make a 10 percent cut of the whole agency by the end of the 2015 year. Without SEANC fighting for every inch, this may have happened instead of studying the request first.

Even though it is sad and painful news to us that some DOT workers will lose their jobs, the cuts could have been much more severe. At the beginning of the session, there were rumors of cuts “in the thousands.”

SEANC dues deduction

As the session drew to a close, SEANC’s lobbyists were keeping a watchful eye on Senate Bill 3, which was proposed in the first week of the session and would have taken away state employees’ right to have their SEANC dues deducted from their paychecks. There was heavy discussion that the language in that bill and its House companion, House Bill 862, would be slipped into another bill during the flurry of legislation passed at the end of the session, perhaps in the Medicaid reform bill, the technical corrections bill or the transportation bonds bill.

Thankfully, that did not occur. This is another big win for SEANC. It never was brought up in committee, allowing our lobbyists the time to advocate for the issues that really matter for state employees. If SB3 would have moved, the landscape would have been very different. But we expect it to be a hot topic when the General Assembly returns in April 2016.

SEANC has already set up a process for offering bank drafts to members in place of payroll deduction. It will be available as an option this fall.

Contact your legislators

Even when the legislature isn’t in session, we still encourage members to contact your lawmakers to make sure your voice is heard. Help your legislators put a face to state employees, SEANC and their constituents. Not sure who your legislators are? Click here.  Curious whether they were endorsed by EMPAC? Click here. Want to make note of all of SEANC’s legislative priorities before talking to them? Click here.