Tribal Council is slated to vote on a budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 on Thursday, Sept. 12, but no draft document has been released to the media. 

By Patrick M. Gleason • Guest Columnist

What Rep. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville, failed to mention in his recent column in these pages is that imposing Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in North Carolina would require state government to spend an additional $6 billion in taxpayer dollars over the next two years alone. Those additional costs would have to be paid by North Carolina taxpayers. 

Although Republicans still control both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly, Democratic victories in the 2018 legislative election stripped Republicans of their power to override the veto of Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount. That, said Waynesville Democratic Rep. Joe Sam Queen, has changed the political climate in Raleigh. 

North Carolina’s budget standoff shows no signs of ending, weeks after Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount, followed through on a promise to veto a Republican-crafted budget that doesn’t include Medicaid expansion. 

By Rep. Joe Sam Queen • Guest Columnist

I will stand with our governor and uphold his budget veto because we can do better — we must do better — for Haywood, Jackson, and Swain Counties. $95 million better!

This year, we have a real opportunity to make smart investments in our communities. We can expand Medicaid today, covering 500,000 hard-working, low-wage workers across our state, all with no new taxes. We can put a forward-thinking bond package on the ballot for the citizens to vote on this November that will make critical investments in our public schools. Our current budget proposal does not accomplish either of these necessary goals. 

Calling the $24 billion state budget passed by North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature “an astonishing failure,” Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount, vetoed it June 28. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has a budget. The N.C. House of Representatives has a budget. The N.C. Senate has a budget. But as of now, the state of North Carolina does not. 

The town of Franklin’s adopted 2019-20 budget will not include funding for local nonprofit organizations as it has in the past. 

The Jackson County Commissioners will adopt the budget for fiscal year 2019-2020 in a special-called meeting at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, a change from the original June 18 adoption timeline.

Angela Phillips painted a painfully realistic picture of what it’s been like inside her second-grade classroom at Cartoogechaye Elementary for the last few years.