General Assembly kicks off

The 2011 North Carolina legislative session began here Wednesday with Republicans in control of the General Assembly for the first time since 1870.

Attention will quickly turn to cutting state spending by as much as 20 percent, but the first day of the session was about history and ceremony, with few new details about how Republicans will proceed now that they hold majorities in both the House and Senate.

But it was a big day for Rep. Dale Folwell, R-Forsyth, who was formally elected House speaker pro tem, a top leadership position.

Folwell struck a somber tone in his acceptance speech, calling on legislators, and the new speaker in particular, to "advocate for the invisible" even as they look for massive budget cuts. That means watching out for the jobless and the third of North Carolina high school students who never graduate, Folwell said.

"Focus on justice," Folwell advised freshmen legislators in the chamber. "If you do what's just in the beginning, there's not as much need for charity in the end."

Wednesday was also the culmination of a meteoric rise for new Speaker of the House Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, who was elected speaker in his third legislative term. In the Senate, Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, replaced longtime President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, who decided to retire from the Senate after November's elections, which saw Democrats beaten in droves as unhappy voters flipped power in the state.

Most issues will have to play out through a series of committee meetings and floor debates likely to last for months at the Capitol. But some promises Republicans have made clear, and they reiterated them Wednesday. No. 1 on the list: no tax increases.

That includes, for the GOP, no extensions of the temporary sales-tax increases and income-tax surcharges for people making more than $100,000 a year, both of which the legislature approved two years ago to balance the budget. Last month, Gov. Bev Perdue said she also planned to leave those taxes out of her budget proposal, which she is expected to present to legislators next month. But this week, the governor said she'll consider calling for an extension.

"I am not going to be the one who puts 50 kids in a classroom," Perdue said Tuesday.

Many fear that some state services will collapse if legislators cut $3.7 billion out of a $19 billion budget, as they've discussed. Sen. Linda Garrou, D-Forsyth, was deeply involved in the budget-writing process last year, but this year she can do little but worry about the coming cuts, particularly to public schools.

"I don't know how the cuts are going to be made without (affecting) education," Garrou said.

Many have deemed it impossible to avoid laying off teachers and raising class sizes without a tax increase, because K-12 schools, universities and community colleges make up 60 percent of the state budget. Tillis, Berger and other Republican leaders have acknowledged that layoffs are possible but stopped short of saying they're certain.

But expectations are filtering down to local school systems. The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County district is contemplating a budget that eliminates 500 to 1,000 of the system's 8,000 current employees for the 2011-2012 school year.

Medicaid and other social services are also likely to be cut. Tillis said during his first speech as speaker Wednesday that the state needs to root out fraud and be "smarter and more efficient" when it comes to state and federally funded health services.

Though tax increases seem to be out of the question for the new majority, other sources of revenue may not be. Tillis called Wednesday for "new ways to fund improvement to our aging infrastructure," which he later said was an allusion to toll roads.

Tillis and Berger voiced support Wednesday for privatization of some state services, which Berger said would have to be looked at case by case. Perdue has already said she hopes to privatize the state's technology division to save money, but she has rejected calls to privatize the state's liquor stores.

Cutting the budget will be the legislature's first priority, but several other issues — promised repeatedly during Republican campaigns last year — also will move quickly in the next few weeks, Berger and Tillis said. Those include:

•A vote to challenge federal health-care reform. This would partner North Carolina with several other states taking legal action against the federal government over what Republicans have dubbed "Obamacare." This bill will be in a House judicial committee today, Tillis said.

•Voter identification. Legislation to require voters to have picture identification with them at the polls will move quickly, Republican leaders said.

•Charter schools. Berger said the Senate plans to eliminate the state cap that limits North Carolina to 100 charter schools, which operate with more freedom than traditional public schools. Tillis was less specific but said the House "will do something to allow more good charter schools."

Berger said he also expects the Senate to move quickly to approve new budgetary powers for the governor, giving her more freedom to cut the budget this year instead of waiting for the new budget to take effect July 1.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.