N Carolina Budget Passes....The Shame

The NC Senate budget for 2013-14:
- continues the phasing out of the Teaching Fellows Program
-eliminates support for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching.
-eliminates salary increases for teachers who chose to go to graduate school to improve their qualifications
-reduces funding for textbooks and schools buses
- raises tuition at community colleges
- increases fees for drivers education classes
- eliminates the Youth Advocacy and Involvement office which supports programs such as the Youth Legislative Assembly and the State Government Internship Program
- ends the Public Campaign Fund, for the public financing of state judicial elections
- almost quintuples the number of political hires in non-civil service state positions, increasing the politicalization and reducing professionalization of these positions
-moves the Bureau of Investigations from the independent Attorney General’s Office to the governor’s Dept. of Public Safety, again increasing politicalization
- eliminates funding for NC Prisoner Legal Services
- eliminates operational support for the Biofuels Center
- cuts funding for the recycling office and for the Solid Waste Trust Fund
- cuts the NC Wildlife Resources Commission budget by 49%
- reduces funding for the adopt-a-trail program
- cuts funds for the NC Zoo
- reduces funding for the oral health program, which provides dental assistance to children in poverty
- makes it harder for low-income women to get prenatal care
- closes three state operated drug and alcohol abuse centers
- makes people applying for public assistance pay for pre-application drug testing
- does not fund compensation for the victims of the state’s involuntary sterilization program
- includes new fees for hybrid and electric vehicles
- requires tolls on all ferry routes
- ends the oyster recycling program which helps rebuild oyster reefs