The joint budget for Justice and Public Safety for the upcoming fiscal year entails a 3.5 percent increase to the original JPS budget passed by state lawmakers last year. Despite unmet needs in North Carolina such as re-entry services for ex-offenders returning into local communities, little progress is made beyond funding for pay raises and one-time bonuses.
Highlights from the joint budget for Justice and Public Safety:
Public Safety
- Provides $51.1 million in state funding for a 1.5 percent salary increase and a one-time 0.5 percent bonus payment for permanent full-time State employees. This funding also provides salary increases for eligible State agency teachers and State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and Alcohol Law Enforcement agents as well as experience-based step increases for eligible State Highway Patrol Troopers.
- Includes retirement contributions and a 1.6 percent one-time cost-of-living supplement to retirees.
- Provides $8 million in one-time state funding for the purchase of a new plane for the SBI Airwing.
- Provides $507,784 in one-time state funding for construction and development of first-generation School Risk Management Plans for public schools.
Justice
- Provides $1.1 million in state funding for a 1.5 percent salary increase and a one-time 0.5 percent bonus payment for permanent full-time State employees.
- Includes retirement contributions and a 1.6 percent one-time cost-of-living supplement to retirees.
- Provides $1.38 million in largely one-time state funding to equip and operate a new Western Crime Lab in Edneyville (an unincorporated community in Henderson County, NC).
- Provides $2.19 million in one-time state funding for outsourcing forensic analysis services.
Judicial – Indigent Defense
- Provides $3 million in state funding for a 4.5 percent salary increase and a one-time 0.5 percent bonus payment for permanent full-time Judicial Branch employees and one-time merit-based bonuses for State employees.
- Includes retirement contributions and a 1.6 percent one-time cost-of-living supplement to retirees.
- Provides $3.5 million in one-time state funding to pay for private counsel assigned to those unable to pay for legal representation, which ensures access to legal representation.
Judicial
- Provides $26.8 million in state funding for a 4.5 percent salary increase and a one-time 0.5 percent bonus payment for non-step eligible permanent full-time Judicial Branch employees and a 1.5 percent step increase for step-eligible employees.
- Provides one-time merit-based bonuses for State employees within the Administrative Officer of the Courts (AOC).
- Experienced-based step increase provided to eligible Assistant and Deputy Clerks of Superior Court and Magistrates.
- Includes retirement contributions and a 1.6 percent one-time cost-of-living supplement to retirees.
- Includes retirement contributions and a 1.6 percent one-time cost-of-living supplement to retirees.
- Provides funding to create new district court judge positions in Cabarrus, Cleveland and Lincoln counties.
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