Podcasts Archives • NC Newsline

Public Ed Works executive director David Rice

After more than a full year of delay at the legislature, North Carolina finally has a new state budget and as is almost always the case, what the new budget does and doesn’t do for public education is among the matters receiving the most attention.

The good news is that a lot of teachers will get some decent raises this fall. Unfortunately, the bad news is that those raises don’t apply to all teachers or school personnel. What’s more, thanks to inflation and the rising cost of health insurance premiums, most teachers remain stuck in the mud financially or even worse off than they were just a couple of years ago.

So, what should we make of this situation? Are lawmakers making encouraging strides in lifting up our public schools or is the new budget just the latest in a series of inadequate measures. Newsline caught up with the veteran executive editor of the nonprofit group Public Ed Works, David Rice, to learn more.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Public Ed Works executive editor David Rice.

SEANC Executive Director Ardis Watkins (Courtesy photo)

Despite listing many concerns, Gov. Josh Stein signed the $34 billion state budget bill into law on July 7. One high-profile area that state employees and teachers felt didn’t go far enough was in compensation for those who keep North Carolina’s public structures and services up and running. While the budget does include decent, if long overdue, raises for some, for most it’s a paltry 3% that fails to keep up with inflation and rising health premiums. Newsline sat down with Ardis Watkins, the executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, for a broader look at the spending plan and why she says it was a mistake to eliminate hundreds of important jobs from the final document.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Ardis Watkins, the executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina.

NC Newsline government and politics reporter Brandon Kingdollar.

North Carolina’s new state budget runs more than 600 pages and includes dozens of other law changes unrelated to spending – many of which are only slowly coming to light and public awareness. NC Newsline state government reporter Brandon Kingdollar followed the twists and turns of the budget making process and recently joined us to discuss some of the controversial pieces of legislation included in the $34 billion spending package.

In Part Two of our discussion, we turned our attention to legislative efforts to ban hemp products and to alter the rules governing our elections and how people vote.

Click here to listen to the full interview with NC Newsline state government reporter Brandon Kingdollar.

Catawba College political scientist and pollster Michael Bitzer

There’s a longstanding pattern in American politics that in most off-year elections, the party of the president tends to lose support and right now, that’s looking more and more like what we’ll see this fall in North Carolina. According to new polling from the Catawba College YouGov Survey, support for President Trump, the Republican U.S. Senate nominee Michael Whatley, and other GOP candidates generally has waned significantly – especially among unaffiliated voters.

So, what’s driving this shift and how significant is it? Recently NC Newsline sat down to discuss these questions and more with Catawba College political scientist and pollster, Michael Bitzer. And as our nation celebrates its 250th birthday, we also got a chance to ask Bitzer about his recent poll that gauged what North Carolinians think about one of the country’s most important founding documents and the principles it espoused.

Click here to listen to our full interview with Catawba College political scientist and pollster, Michael Bitzer.

North Carolina Black Alliance Director Marcus Bass (Photo: Claire Michal/NC Newsline)

Republican leaders at the North Carolina General Assembly have pursued few objectives with more zeal than their crusade to overhaul state elections. Repeatedly, GOP leaders have advanced new laws that make voting more difficult and the oversight of elections more partisan. A new omnibus bill that sprang up at the legislature in recent weeks doubles down on that strategy. To get a better idea of what’s been going on and what’s at stake, NC Newsline sat down for an extended conversation with the executive director of the North Carolina Black Alliance, Marcus Bass.

Bass said while such proposals may be dressed up and marketed as being about promoting election integrity, the real objectives aren’t that hard to discern.

Click here to listen to our full interview with North Carolina Black Alliance director Marcus Bass.

Documentary producer Cristin Severance (Courtesy: WRAL.com)

News deserts. At first blush, it seems like strange term in an era in which most people are regularly inundated on their devices with boatloads of emails and other messages about developments in the world around them. Unfortunately, as even a cursory look at the news landscape across the United States right now quickly reveals, vast swaths of the country – including many parts of North Carolina – are today totally bereft of local newspapers and trained journalists dedicated to carefully watching and reporting on their communities.

And as Newsline learned in a recent conversation with WRAL-TV documentary producer Cristin Severance, the spread of news deserts is having a big and negative impact on the health of the impacted communities and our democracy more generally. The documentary is entitled “Left Uncovered: Inside North Carolina’s News Deserts.”

Click here to listen to the full interview with WRAL-TV Documentary Producer Cristin Severance.

Rep. Deb Butler (Photo: NCGA)

After more than a year of waiting, it appears the North Carolina General Assembly will vote later this week on a comprehensive budget for the new fiscal year that begins July 1.

Newline recently sat down for an extended conversation with New Hanover County State Representative Deb Butler to discuss the lack of open debate in crafting the final spending plan and the public’s right to know.

In part two of our chat, we turned our attention to some other matters of controversy in Raleigh right now – including the latest effort by Republican lawmakers to erect new roadblocks to voting, a proposal to end North Carolina’s longstanding and science-based ban on sea walls at the coast, and the spread of energy sucking data centers and their impact on the electricity bills paid by residential consumers.

Click below for the full interview with Rep. Deb Butler.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein (Photo: NCGA)

With a new state government fiscal year set to commence on July first, North Carolina state legislators have still yet to pass a budget for

While the state has continued to function at a basic level, the lack of funding certainty, and even minimal raises for teachers and other state employees, has caused enormous hardship. Meanwhile, even as the budget and the negotiations around it remain shrouded in secrecy, other important proposals – including more changes to how the state conducts elections – continue to advance.

This past week, Newsline caught up with Wake County state Senator Lisa Grafstein to learn what Republican legislative leaders are telling rank and file members, and why from her perspective, average North Carolinians should be deeply concerned.

We also discussed legislation that would place new burdens on local government by capping property taxes and limiting their options for dealing with homeless populations, and yet another new effort to alter coastal policy without first hearing from and listening to the science experts.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Senator Lisa Grafstein.

Will Scott, North Carolina Policy Director (Photo: Courtesy EDF)

When a utility company like Duke Energy plans for the future, it tries to predict how much electricity its customers will need a decade from now. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, much of that process amounts to a guessing game in which utility company profits often play a much bigger role than keeping ratepayer bills low or protecting our natural environment.

And right now, this appears to be very much the case at the state Utilities Commission as it reviews Duke’s latest carbon plan for the years to come. As NC Newsline learned in a recent conversation with the Environmental Defense Fund’s North Carolina Policy Director, Will Scott, while Duke’s current proposal calls for building a fleet of new gas power plants by 2033, expert testimony indicates that North Carolinians should be deeply skeptical and supportive of alternative proposals that would emphasize improvements to the electric transmission grid and continued rapid development of less expensive and sustainable energy sources like wind and solar power.

Click here to listen to the full interview with the Environmental Defense Fund’s North Carolina Policy Director Will Scott.

Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson (Courtesy photo)

As the effects of climate change continue to grow and spread at an alarming rate, it can be easy to become overwhelmed.

But as author Dr. Katharine Wilkinson documents and explains in her new book, “Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home,” the keys to tackling and adapting to climate change are, despite the recent national policy reversals, there for individuals and communities to embrace — and fast becoming so obvious and cost-effective that no amount of cynical politics will likely be able to derail them. Recently, NC Newsline sat down with Dr. Wilkinson for a special extended conversation, to learn more.

In Part One of our conversation, we discussed the vast and rapid changes that are altering our world for the worse as a result of climate change, as well as the fundamental need that people have for finding a way to chart a better path forward – one in which we come to terms with our collective and individual fears and worries and yet also are not paralyzed by them.

In Part Two, we turned our attention to the fact that, whether our leaders acknowledge the climate crisis or not, as she puts it, “the Earth itself is making known the challenge at hand.” We also explored the encouraging fact that the combination of scientific advances and, in many instances, the profit motive, are driving an array of advances that have enormous positive potential to help rapidly end our addiction to fossil fuels and promote the kind of healing our planet so desperately needs.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, author of “Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home.”