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DSS Faces Criminal Review; State Health Plan Changes

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig
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June 9, 2026 6:23 am

DSS Faces Criminal Review; State Health Plan Changes

Carolina Journal Radio / Nick Craig

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June 9, 2026 6:23 am

The North Carolina General Assembly is grappling with the death of a six-year-old girl due to alleged child abuse and neglect, with lawmakers calling for a criminal review of county officials. Meanwhile, the state health plan is facing a billion-dollar shortfall and is considering rate increases and changes to provider networks. The state board of elections is also considering changes to voter ID rules and election reform.

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We are continuing our coverage of what was an explosive meeting last week in the North Carolina General Assembly as the House Oversight Committee grilled state and local officials over the death of six-year-old Dominique Moody. That situation coming to a head in late 2025 after years of reported neglect and abuse, law enforcement responded to a home in Charlotte in mid-December of 2025 to find the six-year-old girl weighing just 27 pounds at the time dead on the property. It was a more than eight, almost an eight and a half hour meeting in Raleigh last week, in which The lawmakers grilled again a variety of different officials as to how something like this falls through the cracks. The update we have this morning is a new letter sent from the House Oversight Committee to Spencer Merriweather, who is the DA in the 26th Prosecutorial District, which does include Mecklenburg County. Before we get into this letter sent by the committee, these were the closing comments from the representative that was overseeing the hearing in Raleigh.

This is Alan Shesser in Raleigh last week. If you will not commit. to having people sent For legal evaluation in the case, the investigation you've done. for charges I call on DA Merriweather to do it. There should be people held to account, and I believe there are people at that table that should be held to account.

For the criminal neglect that has been shown in this case. and other cases which is proof proven by the DHHS report. If I assist. In the commission of a crime, I am culpable. That's Representative Alan Chesser in his closing comments last week.

The letter titled or sent to the DA and Spencer Merriweather reads in part: On May the 20th, 2026, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services issued a corrective action letter that documented Mecklenburg County's failures in writing. NCDHS found that four out of five screened-out reports involving Dominique's guardians met the definition of abuse or neglect, yet each was, quote, screened out with no further assessment of the child's safety. NCDHHS further found that contacts were not frequently, were not frequently enough contacted to ensure safety, that CPS history was not reviewed, that significant collateral contacts were not made, and that the inaccuracy and the inaccurate case decisions resulted in, quote, no services being provided to ensure the safety of the children. Those failures were confirmed to this one family. NCDHHS reviewed 122 unrelated child protective service reports and assessments and found a broad systematic lack of appropriate safety planning.

In 52% of intakes, workers did not ask sufficient questions to explore the alleged maltreatment. In 36% of cases involving allegations that may have met the criminal definition of child abuse, the files did not contain verbal and written notifications to the district attorney and law enforcement. Safety plans were adequate in only 43% of the cases. The letter to District Attorney Spencer Merriweather from the House Oversight Committee goes on to say that the leadership of that committee called the county's interim director of the Department of Child, Family and Adult Services, among others, to testify upon these matters. The letter reads: Accordingly, in exercise of its oversight responsibility, the committee calls upon you, the Mecklenburg County District Attorney, to conduct a criminal review of every Mecklenburg County DSS employee, supervisor, manager, director, and county official who handled, supervised, approved, screened out, documented, failed to document, escalated, or failed to escalate any reports involving Dominique Moody, her household, or any other child in the home.

That review should examine potential violations of the following provisions of North Carolina law, together with any related obstruction or concealment offenses, any false record offenses, and whereby supported by the evidence, involuntary manslaughter by culpable neglect, listing off multiple North Carolina general statutes dealing with the responsibility for officials and individuals, in a large part, anybody over the age of 18 who has an obligation to report child abuse and neglect to state government. The letter closes by saying the following: Dominique Moody weighed 27 pounds when she was found dead in a dog crate, covered in urine and feces. Four out of five reports that should have prompted action were closed with no further assessment of her safety. The House Oversight hearing made clear that Mecklenburg County DSS has no excuse for her death and its own leadership. Leadership admitted that the agency did not comply with the law meant to protect her.

We respectfully ask that your office determine whether the public employees and officials who failed Dominique Moody broke the law while she was left to suffer and die. Signed Representatives Jake Johnson, Brendan Jones, and Harry Warner of the all three co-chairs of the North Carolina House Oversight Committee. For a little bit more context on this, this was a little bit more of the back and forth exchange between Representative Alan Chessler, who chaired the committee in Raleigh last week, and officials over whether anybody within Mecklenburg County was referred to the district attorney for potential criminal charges. I have seen not to disparage anyone. But I have seen what feels like an effort to withhold to protect.

An organization, a county, I don't know.

Alright. And it seems like a lot more effort is going into protecting information from becoming public. then went into protecting the child at the center of this. Let me ask a clarifying question. Do you believe that any laws have been broken by your department or the members of your department.

So If a failure to follow statute is breaking the law, then the answer would have to be Yeah. We've been advised legally not to respond to that.

Sorry. I mean, it seems like a fairly simple question. I would say that, yes, a failure to follow statute would constitute breaking the law. Is that applicable to anyone? Did you discover that to be applicable to anyone in your internal investigation?

We followed our policy. Did you follow the law? I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm confirmed with my attorney.

to make sure that I speak to that. What I've been advised is we follow the law to the best of our abilities. That's my response here.

So your internal investigation did not include any times at which you did not adhere to statute? And there are no employees that have been disciplined for violations of statute or any action that would be expected to be done per statute. This was not what happened. They were disciplined for not following county policy, as I stated earlier.

So, that is just some more of the back and forth, some of the questioning about whether county employees within Mecklenburg County did, in fact, break North Carolina General Statute, aka North Carolina law, with their lack of reporting information of child abuse and neglect to law enforcement within the area. We'll be keeping an eye on this, a potential response maybe from District Attorney Spencer Merriweather. More commentary from lawmakers in Raleigh. We'll be keeping you up to date with all the details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour and over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. It's 5:21.

Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. A good Tuesday morning to you. There's been some pretty significant discussions over the last year here in North Carolina as it relates to the state health plan.

Some prices and plans increasing. We are continuing to track that over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. To bring us up to date this morning, Teresa Opaca joins us on the program to discuss Medicare rates that were discussed at a state health plan meeting last week. Teresa, for those that are employees or now retirees within the state of North Carolina, this has been a major topic of discussion, all because the state was looking at what a billion-dollar shortfall in just the next couple of years. That's right, Nick.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, so what they talked about at their meeting last week is they are going to be raising rates on the Medicare Advantage plans for the older workers and retirees. And also, too, we'll get into this a little bit later, discussing a new tier system for providers in the state.

So going back to the Medicare Advantage Plan, it's the Humana Medicare Advantage plans. They have nearly 177,000 enrolled members in the state. And changes will save the plan about $54 million, which is going to close the project, will help to close the projected $58 million gap for 2027. And we've heard from Tom Friban, who is the executive administrator of the State Health Plan, and State Treasurer Brad Reiner, who oversees the State Health Plan. Both of them acknowledged it's not going to be popular what they're doing, but they really need to keep the plan financially sustainable, and this is one of the ways that they're doing it.

Teresa, that's such a good point. And we heard this discussion take place in the months prior when other rates went up within the state health plan as well. And, you know, government isn't always supposed to be easy, Teresa. And with looking at some of the numbers and some of the shortfalls that the state health plan was facing, I mean, from my vantage point, and I don't want to proclaim to be an expert in the field, there just didn't seem to be any other option but to slowly start increasing these rates for individuals that are members of the state health plan. If not, the state was looking at major deficits, not 10 or 15 years from now, but in the next year or two.

Right, right. Like you just mentioned about the billion-dollar shortfall, a $1.3 billion deficit was projected in 2027. But the changes that were implemented by the State Health Plan Board and General Assembly, they were able to reverse that trend. And they brought the plan about $30 million above in the reserve rate, according to Freeman, earlier this year. The plan's original projected deficit was about $507 million in 2026, and then between the $800 million and $900 million in 2027.

So they have made a significant dent, but there's still a ways to go. Yeah, no question about that, as this is a major topic of discussion for folks both in the private and public sector, especially here in North Carolina. Teresa, I don't know how many times you and I have talked about a variety of studies and surveys done across the nation, North Carolina consistently ranking very close to, if not at the top of the list for some of the most expensive health care anywhere in the U.S. Yep, that's right. That's right.

That we unfortunately have that moniker and trying to, you know, maybe make some headway in that and talking about a lot of different things. You know, of course, in the Raleigh area, there's talk of a merger right now with the Wake Med Health System and Atrium Health, which is based over in Charlotte, which is Atrium is when they merged, they're like the third largest hospital system in the country right now.

So they've got all this stuff going on and what people talking about that merger saying that that's going to push prices up even further, which we have Treasurer Breiner voicing his displeasure with that a little while ago. And also at the State Health Plan meeting, they talked about it briefly.

So yeah, healthcare costs in North Carolina are among the highest in the nation.

So looking at some of your details over at CarolinaJournal.com, it looks like out-of-pocket pocket maximums for the base plan will go up about $500 a year and from $3,300 to $3,700 for those that are on the enhanced plan. What was some of the reaction to this being announced at least discussed? It has not been officially voted on. Those changes are not in full effect. But what was some of the discussion when this was proposed last week?

Sure.

So we had the Director of Government Relations for North Carolina retired governmental employees association, Jackson Kozar. He told everybody there that while he acknowledges That they inherited a very large ship that had a very large hold. They have grave concerns regarding the substantial increase being proposed for retirees and other members. I mean, basically, they're saying that health care costs are not simply another line item in their household budget. It's mostly one of the most significant expenses that they face because they lived on a fixed income, right?

They have their pensions that remain fixed while costs continue to rise for health care and just about everything else. You know, we also had Suzanne Beasley, Director of Government Relations for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, agreeing with him. And she added, you know, long time, it's been a long time since retirees have seen a cost of living adjustment or COLA, and their buying power is down about 30%. She said, it's going to be probably pretty unbearable for those people.

So the premiums will be voted on in July. But these, these, the out-of-pocket costs and all of that that you mentioned, they were voted on before last. last week and they did agree to you know increase those And it's important to note that this plan has been relatively stable for at least the last five years. This has been, unfortunately, kind of the growing trend as these discussions have come forward over the last year or so in a variety of different health care plans that the state health plan offers, Teresa. Most of these plans have been relatively stagnant.

We've seen health care costs skyrocket over the last couple of years. That has not been the case with the state health plan, and it seems like we're kind of looking at maybe a lagging effect of some of those costs, unfortunately, finally catching up with what reality is in the healthcare industry. Yeah, right. For years there was like a zero cost increase. We had the former treasurer Dale Falwell, who oversaw the plan, basically was using reserves to pay for any increases.

And Friedman said those days are over. And unfortunately, you're not going to have zero increase. There's going to be some kind of an increase because it's just the way it is. Healthcare is increasingly getting expensive across the U. S., not just in North Carolina.

So yeah, now they have to make up for lost time and fix the that big, huge hole in the ship as it was previously mentioned. And that's what they're trying to do. One of the things that we do in our everyday lives, Teresa, is shop around for the best deal, whether you're looking at getting new appliances, maybe a new car, really in just every facet of your life. That is something that is not always the case and hasn't always been the case as it relates to health care. But the state health plan also had some announcements about that last week, where it seems like the state treasurer is encouraging individuals to shop around and try and find some of the best deals if, in fact, they do need medical service.

Yeah, and you know, that's what they're trying to do with the they have proposed changes for the providers, is what they're doing. That they're having they're going to have different selections when it comes to providers. It's going to be broken down into preferred access, non-preferred, and audit network. Preferred, obviously, is who they really want members to go to because they're providing the best costs for the best bang for the buck, right? That's what they're going to try to do.

And Treasurer Bryner said, We're asking our members to become shoppers in healthcare, and we've never asked them to really do that before. He said, We just all taken for granted what we've been given and assumed that it was the best for them. And they can't assume that anymore.

So, like you said, have to look around for the best price, the better price. We have to respond when providers give us a better deal. And we need to educate all of our members as much as we humanly can to all those choices.

So, in the article, you're going to see some slides that were presented at that meeting. Talking about what exactly a preferred provider is versus an audit network provider. I mean, you know what audit network is, but what the different criteria was met for each of those. And basically, It's not set in stone yet, as Treasurer Breiner mentioned. He said they're still working to get providers onto those lists.

So maybe there's a provider that's kind of hedging. Maybe you're going to a doctor right now that might look like they're out of network, non-preferred, but they may come onto that preferred list. But again, you like you just said, we have to shop around and see what you can get for the best for your money, especially these days. Yeah, and it's again not only the best for your money, but it's the best money for the state of North Carolina, who, of course, is bearing a lot of the responsibility for this state health plan. And you made a great point there, Teresa.

I mean, I think most people are probably used to just looking at either in or out of network. Those are really your only two options.

So, some very interesting proposals here from the preferred access, non-preferred, and then the traditional out-of-network. Great call out there. We've got there's a lot of numbers, a lot of different colors on all of these charts. We encourage our audience this morning to go check out the details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update from Teresa Opeka right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.

Where it's now 5:31 on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM, WBT from the Charlotte Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Traffic Center. Trust your senses to Centaur. Here's a look at the roadways with Boomer von Cannon. Thank you, Nick. I'm looking pretty good right now on the interstates.

Not seeing delays or any significant problems along I-85, I-77, and 45 moving well at posted speed.

Now, if you're on I-485, taking the interloop from Matthews over to I-77, that's between Exit 51 Independence and I-77, Exit 67, looking at a drive time just under 20 minutes. And Gastonia overnight incident affecting the Highway 321 ramp to northbound I-85.

So, in the meantime, you may want to go with Highway 7 Long Street as an alternate. Boomer von Canon WBT Traffic Now with the latest in sports, WBT Sports Director, Jim Zoki. Spurs beat the Knicks 115 to 111. San Antonio cutting New York's NBA Finals lead down to two games to one. Victor Wembanyama had 32 points for the Spurs.

The Knicks also led by Jalen Brunson's 32 points in the loss. It was the Knicks' first loss in 46 days as their 13-game win streak ended. Road team has won every game in this series. Game four back in New York tomorrow night. Atlanta Hawks agreed on a multi-year contract extension with Coach Quinn Snyder.

Atlanta lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Knicks. It's game four of the NHL Stanley Cup final tonight in Vegas. Carolina Hurricanes trailed the series two games to one. Coach Rod Brindemore has decided who will start in goal between Freddie Anderson and Brandon Bussey, but will not announce it in advance. North Carolina will face Old Miss in the College World Series Friday night at 7 p.m.

Brewers outlast the A's 15 to 14 in 12 innings. Yankees in 10 innings beat the Guardians 7 to 5. Josh Naylor with a grand slam. Mariners win over Baltimore 6-3. Jim Zoki, WBT Sports.

My name is Travis Crawford. And I think sometimes we forget it's perfectly reasonable for people to change their minds. That's the beauty of having your own opinions. You're allowed to change them.

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I would like to suggest you that pride isn't necessarily good at all. It's what causes us to rebel against God and always need to be right.

Well, here is another evidence of pride being in your life. It demands your way or no way. You will not yield to another person's opinion. You believe your way is the only right way. It is indeed what makes you self-righteous.

It's what causes you to rebel against God and demand your way or no way. I would suggest to you today that pride is not good. Pride is what caused the devil to become the devil. It's what causes us to rebel against God. Fight pride with every ounce of your being.

God opposes the proud, but he loves it when you're humble. Make sure you know that God is God, and when you admit that, you are truly humble. I'm David Chadwick with this Moment of Hope. Moments of Open brought to you by Perry's Diamonds and Estate Jewelry, the Southeast Premier Diamond and Estate Jewelers since 1978. Does it ever feel like nobody wants to listen to what's bugging you?

Well, WBT's always here for you. Agree with us? Disagree with us? WBT is where you can talk it out. 704-570-1079.

Give us a call. We'll listen and we'll tell you what we think. 107.9 FM, WBT, your city, your station. It's 5.38. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM.

WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good Tuesday morning to you. Over the last couple of years here in North Carolina, we've seen some very high-profile, close elections. You can look at the election of the current head of the North Carolina Supreme Court, Justice Paul Newby, back a couple of years ago, the months-long Allison Riggs Jefferson Griffin recount, and most recently, just coming out of the March 2026 primary, the Phil Berger Sam Page race in northern portions of North Carolina. A lot of interesting things going on, recounts happening in many of these contests to walk through some potential proposed changes to those recount rules here across the state of North Carolina.

Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, you've had some public, the ability to publicly comment on these proposed rule changes. Can you walk us through some of the details and then what you're urging the state board to do? All right.

Well, the proposal is basically a couple of small things. And these changes are relatively innocuous. One is it's going to make it easier for county boards to appoint people who are neither members of the Republican or Democratic Party to be on the teams that actually do the recounts. That's already allowed, but they're stripping away language that says they have to make a diligent effort first to find somebody from both parties. In North Carolina, as we're getting more and more people who are unaffiliated, it is starting to get harder to get people that are in one or the other party, especially if you're in some of these counties where one of the parties is really underrepresented, like say hard to find a Republican in Durham County or hard to find a Democrat in some of these Foothill counties occasionally that are willing and able to do this work.

So this makes it easier to do that. And then also there's some rules that help make it a little bit easier in the process for them to delegate. Like the whole county board doesn't have to be on hand. They can delegate a couple of members to be on hand. The state board of elections doesn't have to be on hand for a recount.

They can delegate that to the director. But they do have a protection that says that you cannot officially call the recount until the state board of elections has been notified of the results.

So this isn't, these rules are in there so that you can't really just kind of slip in a result and say, okay, it's it, let's go home. The state board at least has to be notified of it ahead of time. I'm glad you brought up this concept of not having to have the full board sitting at a meeting when some of these recount procedures are going on. We did see this earlier this year in portions of Rockingham and Guilford County. And having watched many of these recount live streams and WebEx calls, Andy, the board essentially just sat there for hours.

They weren't the ones actually doing the recount, just kind of waiting while staff went through this process. I can't imagine that that was an effective use of most of those individual times again because they weren't actually doing anything. They were just more on site because of these previous rules. Right. And this will streamline.

I mean, this is especially important for the state board because we have state board members. I know we have one from Otaga County. We have another one I think is either from Brunswick or somewhere there on the eastern coast. And so having to bring those together, what is... essentially a clerical function for them, they're not actually doing anything, is a waste of resources when you can delegate that authority.

They can still meet virtually and receive the information that they get from the executive director. It'll make things go faster and it'll be less taxing on the boards. And, you know, a lot of these are voluntary positions. And anything you can do to kind of make that job easier so that people are less likely to quit after going through a recount or two is probably good for the process.

Well, and Andy, you talk about being taxing. It's important to note that obviously these recounts are happening right after a very busy election cycle. You've seemingly got a million days of early voting leading up to actual election day. Whether it's primary day or general election day. And then there's very strict timelines and margins as to when a recount can be requested.

So, this is very much a marathon session from not only the employees, but some of the other folks that are involved in the election process in all 100 counties across the state. It is. And so this is helpful. And I'm not expecting there to be a whole lot of opposition. I was at the hearing yesterday.

It was only me and one other speaker. The other speaker didn't really speak much on this issue. She was angry about something else. But I think people will look at this and say, well, this is pretty innocuous stuff. This is just streamlining the rules.

There are protections to make sure nobody can kind of, you know. Run ragged over the other side.

So nothing's getting slipped by here. This is just really making the process smoother. And we'll be awaiting we should see in the next couple of months of what the State Board of Elections decides to do as whether it decides to approve or not approve some of these suggested changes. There's also a State Board of Elections meeting coming up. What is that?

A little bit later on today, Andy? Yes, this afternoon is going to be on voter ID. Whereas yesterday's meeting was kind of quiet. There were only two speakers and we were sitting in the empty room for about 15 minutes. They actually had audio problems.

So this is a good warm-up. Hopefully they'll have the system fixed because voter ID in North Carolina tends to raise passions. And so I'm expecting that meeting later today to be jam-packed. There's going to be a lot of speakers. It will take, you know, well, probably take well over an hour to get through all of the speakers.

And a lot of them are kind of singing off the same sheet of music, even if they're, you know, variations on a theme. But yes, it is going to be a big deal. And I'm expecting some of these other ones that we have later on. It's kind of going to be the new norm.

Now that Republicans are in charge of the state board, I think we're more likely to have folks protesting the meetings and the rules changes. The two sides kind of operate on different frequencies that way. And so I think. I think, yeah, we may very well have some fireworks later today. Yeah, and we have seen some of those fireworks in recent state board of elections meetings over the last couple of months as well.

We know that you'll be keeping a close eye on that. Let's just briefly talk about voter ID. It's been now a couple of election cycles, Andy, where that has been on the books here in the state of North Carolina. I know you and I have chatted about it in the past, either during the early voting period or immediately after Election Day. And from all the conversations we've had and from reports from the state board and other folks across North Carolina, things still seem to be working pretty well, even though there was a lot of uproar before it was fully implemented here across the Tar Hills state.

Yeah, I mean, voter ID, like in the rest of the country, is broadly popular in North Carolina. But the people who are against voter ID are really against voter ID. And so you do get a lot of that passion in the debate.

Now, what we're having here, probably the most contentious change that they're going to have in the voter ID rules with the hearing today and the eventual vote later on this summer, is a rule where currently, in order, if you don't have an ID, you have a couple of options. One of them you can fill out this exception form. Another one you can fill out an affidavit.

Sorry, fill out a form saying this is the reason I don't have an ID, and then you vote provisionally. And then the county boards, under the current rules, which were passed in 2024, say that they have to approve of that affidavit and accept the provisional ballot unless the board unanimously finds that the affidavit is false for whatever reason. This rule change will change that from a unanimous decision into a simple majority. And that is that comports with the law better. The law just says if the board finds reason that it's false, it doesn't say anything about it being unanimous.

And there are other parts of that same law where the General Assembly said this vote has to be unanimous when you're looking at IDs actually in the precinct, whether or not to accept the ID.

So when the General Assembly wants there to be a unanimous vote, they will tell the state board this needs to be unanimous. There was nothing here. The State Board of Elections kind of overstepped its bounds two years ago, and this is going to be a correction to that. But I expect people are going to be upset about that correction. Oh, and Andy, and I assume the vast majority of our audience has not watched either a state board of election meeting or probably their local county board of election meeting.

If you've ever had the pleasure or taking some time out of your day to do so, it is not very common that you get unanimous votes. That was the case in the past when it was a 3-2 Democrat majority, and that's the case now with the 3-2 Republican over Democrat majority as well. It is very hard, especially when we're in the political sector, to get five people. It might even be hard to get two people to agree on the same issue.

So, that obviously is something that the state board wants to move forward with. Right. And it created an unnecessary hurdle for folks. And it creates a really strange situation where the board will find reason. If you have a majority vote, the board has found reason to believe that the affidavit is false.

So, despite that finding, they're still going to have to accept the ballot because it's not unanimous. It's a bit of a strange situation, especially given how the law was written that it doesn't require that kind of unanimity. And so, once again, this is a correction. I think that the state board is going to end up accepting that. That proposed change, despite what I do expect to be a whole lot of upset and some well-reasoned also, reasons for them not to do it.

If you just counted on numbers of people at a hearing, then the protesters would always win, despite what the general public may say.

Well, Andy promised us fireworks. We'll be keeping a close eye on that as we head into the afternoon hours here on this Tuesday. We'll also catch up with Andy in the next couple of days and do a little bit of a recap as to what some of those conversations look like as well. You can read continuing coverage this morning. We've got some details over on our website, johnlocke.org.

We appreciate the update this morning. Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5:56. Good morning again.

Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, we have got a jam-packed legislative calendar here in the second week of June as lawmakers look to get all of the business of the General Assembly during this legislative short session wrapped up here in the next couple of weeks. The proposed calendar is not enshrined in law. Lawmakers do not have to follow it, but as it was previously scheduled, lawmakers were expected to potentially have their last voting days coming up July the 1st or 2nd.

So, a lot of business to be done ahead of the July the 4th weekend for lawmakers in Raleigh. We are going to be keeping an eye on dozens of committee meetings today and tomorrow. There remains a plethora of pieces of legislation on the House calendar, multiple veto overrides, some local bills as well. We'll see. If the House takes any of that up, as they are expected to gavel in at 10:30 this morning, 9:30 for the North Carolina Senate.

It's not immediately clear as of right now. When the final proposed budget will be brought forward, it will then obviously have to work through some legislative process before getting an official vote in both the House and Senate. And then, from at that point, being sent on over to Democrat Governor Josh Stein's desk for a signature.

So, another busy couple of days in Raleigh will be keeping you up to date over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.

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