news-record.com

Whoever said good things come to he who waits obviously wasn't talking about the 2009-10 state budget.

Delivered more than one month late and millions of dollars short, the $19 billion spending plan gets most of the broad strokes right: It makes painful but necessary cuts. It maintains education spending as a top priority. It increases taxes on alcohol and cigarettes.

Locally, it continues to invest in the new UNCG-N.C. A&T Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, whose budget was increased by $1 million. And it softens projected cuts to the High Point Market, a sign that lawmakers finally seem to recognize the market's value to the whole state.

But the new budget badly fumbles many other details.

It rips the rug from under the state's already beleaguered mental health system, cutting $40 million and eliminating 350 jobs. Among the casualties: local group homes for troubled youth and drug treatment counselors.

It also relies too heavily on a 1-cent sales tax increase to generate new revenues, which disproportionately affects the poorest consumers.

It puts off revising the state's outmoded tax codes.

And even as it makes education a priority, it forces local school districts to make $225 million in cuts -- at the last minute.

Budget writers say federal stimulus money should bridge the gap for local schools, but larger classes in grades 4-12 are a certainty and more teachers could lose their jobs.

And what happens when the stimulus funds run dry? We'll apparently cross that gap when we get to it.

The biggest outrage of all may be the preservation of more than $10 million for a tuition break that allows all full-scholarship students from out of state to qualify for in-state tuition. In effect, that means athletes, the lion's share of them at N.C. State, UNC-Chapel Hill and Appalachian State.

And it saves money for booster clubs, even as teachers and substance abuse counselors are being shown the door and group homes are being forced to close theirs.

That is shameful and indefensible.

To be sure, the uncertain health of the economy made this budget especially challenging. But there is no excuse for the eternity it took to deliver it, stranding communities and funded agencies in a fog of uncertainty and paralyzing their ability to plan.

As of this week, North Carolina had been one of only three states that hadn't approved a budget.

The General Assembly can do better than that. The state's citizens should demand better.