Nelson Dollar was instrumental in the passage of the most recent North Carolina state budget. He gave an interview to Daily Tar Heel state and national editor Cole Stanley on Tuesday. Read an additional interview with representative Nelson Dollar concerning the new budget here.
Daily Tar Heel: What do you see as the biggest takeaways from the most recent budget?
Verla Insko: Well, I would say the most important thing for people to know is we could have done a lot more, and some of us tried to do a whole lot more.
Most of my colleagues, however, decided to leave about a billion dollars on the table that could have gone towards helping the state and instead used it to pad trust funds.
DTH: What particular impacts might this budget have on UNC?
VI: Well, the budget cut almost a billion dollars from the University system. This budget, as well as much of the legislation proposed this year, is seriously undermining the effectiveness of our University, which has been the model for higher education, at least in the South, for a long time.
We can expect rising tuition, which is frankly following a trend we see in states nationwide right now.
Overall, I just think we’re seeing this massive divestment from the University. It’s apparent and obvious that an educated workforce grows the economy.
And to be fair, Republicans have been pretty good about funding our K-12 schools and community colleges. But we need to extend the same courtesy of service to our University system.
