NC budget winners and losers

The beginning of August marked an agreement on a $ 21.25 billion state spending plan through the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor McCrory.

The plan grants an average teacher pay raise of 7 percent combined with an allegedly full preservation of teacher assistants' jobs. However, the pay rises are widely debated as young teachers would get better raises than veteran educators and teacher assistant jobs would in fact not be easily preserved.

Followed by this debate, The North Carolina House on Tuesday down voted a bill intending regulation on county sales tax rates and other economic incentive measures which needed to pass to pave way for a bill allowing local districts to save more TA jobs. Rep. Larry Pittman said that the teacher assistant fix to the budget "should not be held hostage".

With the failure of the bill, the education budget will likely not be changed, but school districts will have to cope with a funding gap for teacher assistants. Not only the management of education money will remain an issue in the next legislative session, also discussion on a Medicaid overhaul have been deferred to next year.

On a lighter note, the budget as passed three weeks ago designates a $10 million grant program for film production companies in the first half of 2015, to then replace the current film tax credit legislation.

Moreover, the budget authorizes the Governor to purchase or condemn federal land in Dare County to create an Oregon Inlet State Park and to build jetties or other structures needed to stabilize the inlet's navigation channel.