Legislative Report #06-05

Report 06-05
June 2, 2006

HOUSE COMMITTEE WORKS ON BUDGET

The subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee met throughout the week to review agency requests and to identify more than $80 million in expenditures to be trimmed from the proposed budget. The House Appropriations Committee is expected to consider the budget as early as next week.

We continue to request that the House recommend a COLA for retired state employees and teachers that is higher than the 3.0% included in the Senate version of the budget. We have asked that the House include a COLA of at least 3.7% which is the percentage recommended by Governor Easley.

CONTACT YOUR HOUSE MEMBERS!

Last week, we urged our members to contact their representatives in the state House. If you have not already done so, we ask that you make contact as soon as possible. We strongly believe that legislators are more inclined to support us if they hear from their constituents back home.

All House members have an office e-mail address. You can access these addresses through the General Assembly web page (www.ncga.state.nc.us). Go to the “House”, then to “Member List” and click on the name of your representative. This will bring you to their individual page that lists contact information, including the e-mail address.

We appreciate the fact that the General Assembly has provided COLAs for state retirees during the tough budget situations of the past 5 years. However, these increases have not kept pace with the rate of inflation. The inflation rates for the past 5 years total a combined 14.1% while state retiree COLAs totaled only 8.98%. The most recent annual inflation was 3.4%. A COLA of 3.7% would help to recover some of the ground we lost from 2001 through 2005.