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Barry Smith of the Carolina Journal was at the McCrory
let's not call it "The State of the State" but what do you make of the agenda?
Well, I do I do think it is interesting that you mention it's not the State of the State.
It's not. The
governor only gives that every couple years.
its kinda almost like is in between the State of the State.
and I actually thought he did a better job today addressing the press than he did in
the State of the State.
One think - he did it on time last year he was early before the
TV cameras came on. He was just addressing the press there wasn't a lot
of applause and
that sort of stuff, was not a lot off the cuff - prepared remarks.
I thought he gave a fairly upbeat tone, wish is interesting because he's had
really rough first year
as governor. I don't know governor in recent history that has had
as rough a first year as he's had.
Lay out that agenda. How much credence does it appear he's giving
to the legislative leaders who say they wanna come in in May and they want to be
gone if I hear correctly by mid-june well I think that they DO want to be gone
early
and I think the key to that is to have the legislation ready
Some of the legislation is already in the works
you talked about up for example his commerce program where you know he wants
to
address people. That bill has already passed the House
so he's got to work his way through the Senate. He talked about
something that his wife wants to do and that's
the puppy mill bill. That bill has already passed the House. The governor said
is going to be taken some
senators to lunch to try to get that through
so some half of the legislation work has already been done
so he can get that done it doesn't necessarily take a lot of time
to get legislation through particularly if some the works already been done
the big topic puppy mill bill is nice and reporters clued in on that but
teacher pay was thrown in there beginning teacher pay
and hard to fill jobs, teacher salary increases. He wants to
boost teacher pay
He did stop short of saying he wanted to raise it to the national average
that's been a big push since I think governor - former governor Jim Hunt
has come out Op-Eds in a lot of newspapers promoting that
and you I don't know that necessarily it's
something that the site North Carolina's gonna do. I'm glad you brought that up I
read that op-ed and I've
heard what governor McCrory said democrat or republican it was, "Let's raise
teacher pay."
and the answer was "let's just do it" I didn't hear any policy details
Do you pay beginning teachers more? Do you leave some teachers out of a pay raise?
How does it unfold? So some teachers get left behind even if they raise some teacher salaries
of
I would I would expect to see all teachers get a pay raise I think what
Governor McCrory is wanting to do
he says he did doesn't want just a one-time fix.
Hell, let's just raise it three to five percent and that's it
and teachers really have not, and state employee have not gotten
very much of a raise I think what a 1.2 percent maybe a couple years ago
since the Great Recession started so that when you talk about teachers
getting a pay raise
also need to bring in state employees into getting a pay raise. Do you need to politically
however? Now in full
disclosure I'm a state employee - and my sister is a state employee. So,
can state employees not have the political clout this go around the
teachers get the pay raise and the others don't?
I would expect that teachers and state employees
will get a pay raise I don't expect I don't know that I will necessarily be
the same
but I I think they would be hard pressed to do one and not the other. What about
teasing the breakup of DHHS?
"too big to succeed." He said. He said it might be.
The question is "Is it too big to succeed?" And then he
you know he detailed a number of different fires so to speak that the
Department of Health and Human Services and Aldona Vos has had to put out
some of them maybe literally but I'm you know maybe there are some things that
need to be broken up maybe that needs to be
some things moved to other departments or you know
that's something to look at. And oil drilling and fracking out there for the
natural gas he was even faster action on that.
Do you see that, do you see that usurping some of the recent legislative work that set
these time tables? I think the legislature wants to do a lot of that too
he wants to have a - I think he said he wants to have permits going
by about a year, by the Spring of 2015 That's what the law outlines. At DENR,
the state environmental officials - are they there now to represent the people of North
Carolina
are they there to facilitate business and economic growth the North Carolina
or the same thing? I think I think what the governors trying to say is you don't
have to choose
I'm what I hear secretary Sklavara saying is
you know while you we want to be customer-friendly what we want now
again we have to see how it plays out, but
you know we just want to delay people getting things done sometimes
a lot of the problems are in the delays Barry Smith of the Carolina journal, thanks as
always for sharing your insight
thanks