A memo released last week by the Office of State Budget & Management instructed state agencies to limit expenditures in the month of June to “only what is necessary for payroll and minimum operating costs.” (see the memo here) The close of the current fiscal year is June 30.
The memo is in response to Senate Bill 109, signed into law by Gov. Perdue back on March 25. SB 109 authorized the Governor to find $537 million in funding to carry over to the 2011-12 fiscal year. The bill allows Perdue to find these funds through any combination of spending reductions or “non-General Fund” accounts. Recall that SB 109 was a bill created in response to Perdue’s veto of a previous bill that targeted specific funds to dip into to account for a share of the $537 million in carry-over funds.
Perdue at the time defended her veto because the bill targeted the Governor’s corporate welfare money (One North Carolina Fund) as well as money in a political patronage organization mishcharacterized by Perdue as “jobs money” (Golden LEAF).
Senate Bill 109 was signed by Perdue on March 25. So why the wait until June 2 for her budget office to issue their memo and force state agencies to squeeze more than half a billion in savings into one month? Why not take measures beginning in April?
And will Perdue dip into some of the other non-General Fund accounts to come up with the funds?
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