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With the General Assembly about to kick into gear, the various pockets of legislative leadership have scheduled news conferences to set the stage for the short session. Today, it was Senate Democrats in the form of President Pro Temp Marc Basnight along with Sens. Linda Garrou and Martin Nesbitt talking budget. (There’s already a session with legislative Republicans scheduled for tomorrow; no official word has come down on a House Dems presser.)

Much of what that chatted about I covered in my story Sunday. (Click here.)

Basnight and Garrou did reiterate that they thought the step increases for teachers would not fly. They said they would rather take the money Gov. Bev Perdue set aside for raises and paying back the furloughs and put it into keeping teachers employed.

They were also asked about an idea that has been floated to divert some lottery money in order to keep teachers employed. (Click here.) Garrou said that idea came up during joint House-Senate discussion but that the senate version of the budget would not contain such a shift.

Garrou did say that Senate budget writers were “absolutely” on track to have their version of the state budget revision out by the end of next week.

Click below for a video of Basnight, Garrou and Nesbitt talking about general budget topics.

Garrou and Nesbitt said that the Senate would bank on additional Medicaid F-MAP money coming from the federal government in order to balance the North Carolina budget. Nesbitt said 26 states had done the same thing so that there would be extra pressure on the feds to pony up.

That conversation is in this video.