North Carolina
Anti-poverty advocates call on lawmakers to change course during legislative short session • NC Newsline
On Wednesday, nearly 200 supporters of the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign traveled to Raleigh to remind lawmakers returning for the legislative short session that low-income voters make up more than 41% of the state’s electorate.
If low-income eligible voters voted at the same rate as higher-income voters, campaign leaders warned, they could control the outcome of elections.
“That is a sleeping giant that is ready to be activated,” said Rev. Rob Stephens, Repairers of the Breach North Carolina Organizing Committee coordinator and member of the NC Poor People’s Campaign. “If we could just turn out 19% of that group who haven’t voted before, we could fundamentally shift the entire landscape of elections in North Carolina.
Rev. Wayne Wilhelm, one of the chairs of the NC Poor People’s Campaign, said lawmakers need to know that North Carolinians are watching them.
“Your vote is your voice, but showing up before the vote lets them know we’re serious about the changes we need to see,” Wilhelm said. “Poverty is a policy choice. To allow poverty to continue when there is really more than enough for everyone is a moral failure and we will stand up and call it out.”
Before marching to the Legislative Building, speakers rallied outside of the State Capitol to criticize the Republican-led General Assembly for what they called excessive tax cuts, spending millions of tax dollars on private school vouchers, and not increasing the minimum wage in more than a decade.
Instead of addressing the crises of poverty and low wages, lack of healthcare, underfunded public education, voter suppression and environmental collapse, the General Assembly slashed taxes for the wealthy and corporations, promoted a culture of fear and hate, failed to fully fund public education, and cut protections for the most vulnerable North Carolinians, the speakers said.
They also took lawmakers to task for not supporting legislation to improve pay for child care workers. The state will soon spend the last of $1.3 billion in federal grant money that helped child care providers make it through the pandemic. Some of the money was used to increase worker pay.
NC Newsline’s Lynn Bonner reported recently that a February North Carolina Child Care Resource and Referral Council survey found that 88% of childcare providers will need to increase parent fees when the federal money runs out. Forty percent said they would have to raise parent fees immediately. About half said they would lose administrative and teaching staff and about two-thirds said they would have trouble hiring new employees with comparable experience and education.
Nearly one-third of the programs surveyed said they would have to close within a year. That’s equivalent to more than 1,500 programs and close to 92,000 childcare and early education slots.
During the 2023 legislative long session, lawmakers took no action on legislation asking for $300 million this fiscal year to extend the compensation grant portion of the federal Childcare Stabilization Grant. Supporters said the money would reduce teacher turnover, improve the quality of child care and keep rates affordable for parents.
Without state funding, Emma Biggs, a Charlotte child care advocate and provider, said the coming year will be a tough one for families.
Biggs said all of the state’s 100 counties are considered “child care deserts,” meaning there are not enough child care centers or teachers to accommodate children and families.
“We don’t have a shortage of children,” Biggs said. “We have a shortage of teachers due to a broken system where parents cannot afford to pay more, and teachers cannot afford to make less.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper’s recommended budget for fiscal year 2024-25 called for a $745 million investment in child care and early education. The investment would help to avoid the “fiscal cliff in child care funding” and keep child care centers open with $200 million for Child Care Stabilization Grants. It would also provide $128.5 million for child care subsidies to increase reimbursement rates for providers in rural and low-wealth communities.
Private school vouchers were also a top target for speakers at Wednesday’s event. Last year, lawmakers expanded the state’s controversial voucher program to make it accessible to the state’s wealthiest families. The program was created a decade ago to help low-income families in struggling schools pay private school tuition.
Yevonne Brannon, a Public Schools First NC board member, noted that House Speaker Tim Moore said he will ask for $300 million more in the short session to fund private school vouchers.
“They had already planned to spend $5 billion on school vouchers over the next few years, so that’s not enough,” Brannon said. “Now they’re going to make sure that the wealthy families — that $300 million is not for low-income or struggling children — it is for wealth families that are already in private school and can afford private school.”
Sangria Noble, an organizer for the NC Poor People’s Campaign, said poverty is a policy choice. For example, she noted, that the state hasn’t increased the minimum wage since 2008.
“We cannot survive here off of $7.25,” Noble said. “We will end up homeless. We will end up dead.”
Noble was one of the activists assisting unhoused people forced to move from an encampment off of U.S. 70 near Garner on Tuesday. The inhabitants were ordered to move or face arrest after police deemed the encampment unsafe, citing an uptick in crime.
Noble spoke with one man and his pregnant girlfriend who lived in the encampment. He told her that he could probably save enough money in three months working a $10 an hour job to find a place for him and his girlfriend to live, but only after he pays a fine for loitering for sleeping outside.
She said homelessness, poverty and low wages all go hand-in-hand.
“We don’t really have a solution for that man right now,” Noble said. “It looked like the solution yesterday would have been jail. If helped had not come down for protection, it would have been jail.”
In a statement, Bishop William J. Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign said the United States loses 800 people a day to poverty-related causes.
“Poverty by America is an abolishable and unnecessary reality that can be eradicated by enacting policies that address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism,” Barber said. “When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare, then there’s a problem with the soul of our nation.”
A top North Carolina lawmaker who suffered a stunning upset in his primary election last month spoke publicly about the result Tuesday, blaming the loss on political opponents across the aisle.
North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger — who has led the chamber since 2011 — lost the Republican primary for his seat to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page by 23 votes, one of the closest elections in state history. Berger conceded defeat in a March 24 statement after a machine recount and partial hand recount yielded no change in Page’s lead.
Berger discussed the experience with reporters Tuesday after lawmakers convened for a short legislative session in Raleigh. Asked what message voters sent him in the primary, Berger said: “Democrats like to vote in some Republican primaries. That’s the message.”
Berger didn’t elaborate on his explanation. Registered Democrats are only allowed to take Democratic ballots in primary elections. But unaffiliated voters are allowed to participate in a party primary of their choice. Berger didn’t suggest changes to that law, but he mentioned possible examination of other election laws.
He said lawmakers should reconsider the number of days North Carolina allows for early voting in primaries. In-person early voting started on Feb. 12 and ended Feb. 28.
“Seventeen days of early voting just seemed pretty excessive and it really stresses the local boards of elections,” Berger said. Some county election boards struggle to find daily staffing for all of their voting sites in the early voting period, he said.
Minority Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, called Berger’s comments “an insult to his district and an affront to our democracy.”
“The voters sent him a clear message,” Batch said. “It’s time he accept it and get back to work to finish the job he still has, while he still has it. Pass a budget.”
State lawmakers haven’t adopted a comprehensive state budget since 2023. They were expected to do so last year, but Berger and Republican House Speaker Destin Hall have been at odds over a range of issues, including tax policy, Medicaid funding, and other line items affecting billions of dollars in state funding.
Berger said Tuesday that he and Hall were on the verge of a spending agreement for Medicaid, the government-funded health insurer for people who are young, impoverished or disabled. Republican legislators plan to approve Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s $319 Medicaid request, while adding guardrails and oversight measures to prevent fraud and waste.
To strike the deal, Berger said Tuesday that he had agreed to postpone discussions about funding for a massive new children’s hospital. The 2023 budget authorized about $320 million over three fiscal years for North Carolina Children’s Health — a partnership between UNC Health and Duke Health — to open in Apex in 2032. About $216 million has already been spent. Hall has said his caucus wants to reconsider the final installment of funds, about $103 million, while Berger has called on House leaders to release the money.
“We’ve agreed to move the discussion of whether or not the House is going to honor the agreement they made in 2023 to the full budget discussion,” Berger said Tuesday.
Earlier Tuesday, Hall told reporters that progress had been made on negotiating children’s hospital funding.
“It’s not resolved yet,” Hall said. “I think there’s some questions about how much more money it’s going to need exactly in order to be a viable project. And so, you know, those discussions continue.”
Those budget negotiations are ongoing, but Berger said recent conversations have given him reason to be optimistic. “We’re having conversations,” he said. “They are substantive. They haven’t gotten us to an agreement yet, but we are continuing to talk, continuing to exchange ideas,” Berger said.
Hall described budget talks similarly: “The trajectory is good [enough] to where we’re very likely to get a budget done, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
Berger said that, in the final months of his term, he wants to focus on policies that make North Carolina a top destination for businesses.
“I’d like to continue the progress that we’ve made over the years in making North Carolina number one state for business and making North Carolina a competitive state in terms of our tax climate and our regulatory climate,” Berger said, adding that he wants to boost education funding as well.
Addressing property taxes
House and Senate Republicans are also offering separate proposals for limiting property taxes in North Carolina.
House Republicans are pursuing a constitutional amendment that would give the state more control over how much cities and counties can raise property taxes. On Tuesday, Berger said he doesn’t think there’s a consensus on the proposed amendment and noted that it would take several months to enact into law. Voters must approve constitutional amendments at the polls in order for them to become law.
“It’s a start that we can look at,” Berger said of the proposed constitutional amendment. “But that, by itself, would not actually go into effect until after the voters approve it, if they approve it, and then the legislature actually passes some sort of legislation.”
Berger said he plans to introduce a bill that freezes municipal property tax revaluations for 12 months while legislators study the issue further.
“We’ve got to do something,” Berger said. “I just don’t know that there’s consensus as to what that something is.
“The best thing that we can do at this point is just call a timeout and give the legislature an opportunity to try to review whatever proposals might be out there.”
Less than two weeks after losing its head coach to Duke University, a North Carolina high school football program has been promoted from within.
Kevin Reddick will become the new head coach at Rolesville High School, replacing Ranier Rackley, who became the Director of Player Development at Duke University.
News of the decision was first reported by High School OT.
Reddick was the defensive coordinator for the Rams for the past three seasons, helping the team win 25 games during that run. Last year, Rolesville allowed just under 15 points per game with Reddick in charge of the defense.
North Carolina High School Promotes Defensive Coordinator To Head Coach
Rolesville finished 9-4 last season under Rackley and Reddick.
Reddick is a graduate of New Bern High School, helping the Bears capture the 2007 Class 4AA North Carolina High School Athletic Association State Football championship. He was tabbed the most valuable player of that title game as a sophomore fullback after scoring two touchdowns in a 28-17 victory over Independence.
At New Bern, Reddick earned conference defensive player of the year honors and was all-state at lineback as a senior after recording 189 tackles, eight quarterback sacks, six forced fumbles and four blocked punts. He also ran for over 160 yards and scored six touchdowns.
Kevin Reddick Was College Standout, Had NFL Career Before Becoming Coach
Following his high school career, Reddick signed with North Carolina as a four-star prospect, earning first team all-ACC honors as a senior. He also had offers from North Carolina State, Virginia and Clemson.
With the Tar Heels, Reddick played in 50 games, recording 275 tackles, including 36 for loss, with 8.5 quarterback sacks, two interceptions and two forced fumbles.
Reddick signed with the New Orleans Saints as an undrafted rookie free agent, and also had stints with the San Diego Chargers, Carolina Panthers and Buffalo Bills.
Rolesville reached the North Carolina High School Athletic Association State Football championship game with Reddick on the coaching staff and the third round this past season.
Rolesville Returns Top Rusher, Several Other Key Players
The Rams will be replacing starting quarterback Kaleb Williams, who had almost 2,500 yards passing and 22 touchdowns, as freshman Chase Williams was 8-for-8 for 98 yards with a touchdown in three games.
They will have top running back Amir Brown back, as he ran for 1,374 yards with 22 touchdowns and six games of 100 yards rushing as a junior. He also had 13 receptions for 106 yards and another TD.
Anthony Roberts is another key player back, as he caught 35 passes for 656 yards and nine TDs. Top tacklers Jayden Broadie, Javon Campbell, Genesis Allen and Keonte Sutton are all set to return, as well.
Follow
At least two people are dead and “several” others are injured after a “planned fight” at a North Carolina park escalated into a mass shooting, authorities said.
Police have identified several victims and suspects after Monday’s shooting at Leinbach Park near Jefferson Middle School, according to the Winston-Salem Police Department.
Authorities confirmed there were multiple victims in the shooting, but did not provide an exact number. The suspects were still at large over two hours later.
Officers were called to the park just before 10 a.m. after reports of a fight, which then escalated into multiple people shooting each other.
Area schools are not in lockdown, and classes are operating as normal, police said.
“Due to the number of people involved, efforts are ongoing to account for everyone. At this time, some of those involved in the incident are juveniles,” police said.
According to local news station WFMY, at least three people were taken to the hospital. Officials have not shared their conditions.
Police said the shooting was an isolated incident and remains under investigation.
This is a developing story
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