My focus this week is around the difficult budget decisions and some bills of interest.

House lawmakers continued the difficult task of writing North Carolina’s budget for the coming fiscal year. In an attempt to shore up our state’s expected $4 billion shortfall, House members are considering a number of money-saving measures. It is challenging to decide where and how to save money, but these hard decisions are unavoidable if we are to meet our Constitutional duty to balance the budget in the face of a 20 percent drop in revenues.

Many important, effective and popular programs are going to be eliminated or severely cut back as we refine our budget over the next few weeks. At the same time, we may have to increase some fees.

These budget saving measures may be painful in the short term, but they are necessary if we are to protect programs and services that enable us to provide a quality education at all levels, meet the health needs of our most vulnerable persons, maintain and cultivate jobs, and keep us safe in our homes, neighborhoods and schools.

We are trying to spur the economy when we can and protect people’s investments in their homes. We approved several bills that could help the state attract new investment and new building. I have included some information about those bills below.

The House approved a bill that may help North Carolina bring in a new company that would be required to invest $1 billion. The bill changes the way corporate income tax liability is calculated for multi-state taxpayers by considering only the company’s sales in the state when determining their tax bills. The existing formula also accounts for companies’ property holdings and payroll. The change applies only to companies that invest $1 billion or more over a nine-year period. No company in the state currently qualifies for the incentive. The proposal also requires companies to locate in one of the state's poorest counties, provide health insurance, meet a wage standard, and forego other state grants or tax breaks before they can qualify for the incentive.

Also counties and municipalities in North Carolina would be authorized to provide development incentives in exchange for reductions in energy consumption under a bill that passed the House this week. More specifically, counties and municipalities would be able to grant incentives to a developer or builder if they agree to construct a new development or reconstruct an existing development in a way that significantly reduces energy consumption.

In other notes, visitors this week included Sheriff Hubert Peterkin (Hoke) and Sheriff Shep Jones (Scotland) who visited my office to discuss legislation of interest.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions, and I hope that you will contact me if I may be of any assistance.