The legislative building has always been one of the gamiest places in our state, with some master game-players. If the current buzz is accurate we may have some of our best players in place right now.

Latest rumors have the Senate and House actually working together to tweak the Senate version of the budget prior to passage next week. If budget leaders from both houses can resolve major differences in the two spending plans prior to Senate passage it is possible House Speaker Tillis might get his body to concur with the Senate plan, sending a final budget document to Governor Perdue days ahead of what many had projected.

This throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the strategy in the Perdue camp. Most had the budget passed around June 9^th, just 21 days before the current budget is due to expire. The question being posed was how long Perdue would take to veto the budget. The sooner she sends it back to legislators the longer they have to play more budget games.  

Seasoned legislative observers are speculating what will happen if no budget is passed in time for the July 1 start of the new year. North Carolina has had recent instances where lawmakers couldn’t finalize a budget in time and had to pass a “CR” or continuing resolution to continue government into the new fiscal year. It usually continued current spending for a 15 or 30-day period until a final document could be passed. This is a different scenario since Republican legislative leaders have based their entire budget strategy on the premise we cannot continue current spending levels and must dramatically slash the budget. A CR that allows current spending for 30 days is an admission spending was not so bad as they said. On the other hand Perdue won’t be easy to deal with in CR negotiations, seeing this as the first step in a political game of “chicken.” Whoever blinks first will lose.

Washington has demonstrated that political gamesmanship of this nature can result in the shutdown of government. Some have gingerly hinted that such a thing is possible in state government but let us remove any doubt. It is a real and growing possibility with scary possible outcomes. How far is either side prepared to go in the chicken game?

One could easily speculate who would get the worst press in these games. If Perdue vetoes the budget quickly she would immediately put the onus on the legislature, saying the document wasn’t close to anything she (or voters) could approve so go back and do a better job. They would have the better part of a month to do so. If Perdue procrastinates, claiming to be studying all the aspects of the spending plan so as to make an informed decision, she would open herself to criticism for waiting too long to veto a budget everyone already knows she is going to send back to legislators.

The concept of final House and Senate budget approval next week is a potential game-changer, giving legislators a leg up in saying Perdue has more than ample time to consider this budget and give it thumbs up or down.

These games are already affecting state agencies and people. State law says that a state agency must give an employee 30 days notice if they are to be terminated. In anticipation of budget cuts (based on both the House and Senate versions of the budget) some agencies will be notifying employees next week they are losing their jobs. What happens if proposed cuts are not as severe as now appear? How do they operate with dramatically reduced budgets and, at the same time, wait until July 1 to give notice? How will this affect the remaining 11 months of their budgets?

It is a sad commentary that we have come to this state and shows neither good leadership or stewardship on all sides. But this is the environment we are in.

Tell your kids to put down their computer games….the real life contests going on in state government are more exciting.