Enacted Budget – Fiscal Year 2024-2025
On September 22, 2023, the North Carolina legislature approved a biennial budget for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. On October 3, 2023, the budget became law without the governor’s signature. The biennial budget includes net general fund appropriations of $29.7 billion in fiscal 2024, an increase of $2.2 billion, or 7.9 percent, over the base. For fiscal 2025, net general fund appropriations are $30.8 billion, an increase of $1.1 billion, or 3.8 percent, over fiscal 2024. The revised consensus revenue forecast estimates general fund revenues of $33.7 billion in fiscal 2024 and $33.4 billion in fiscal 2025. The expected unappropriated balance remaining in fiscal 2024 is $1.6 billion and is $221.0 million in fiscal 2025. The budget includes salary increases of 4 percent the first year for most state employees and an additional 3 percent the next year. Starting pay for teachers increases by $2,000 to $39,000 and overall teacher pay increases by an average of 7 percent. Other provisions in the budget include investments in mental health care, water and sewer infrastructure projects, highway maintenance projects, childcare grants, and research on PFAS contamination. The budget also incrementally lowers the current income tax rate of 4.75 percent to 3.99 percent in 2026. Medicaid expansion was contingent on passage of the budget and following passage by the legislature, the governor announced Medicaid expansion will launch on December 1, 2023, benefiting more than 600,000 people.