How a Charlotte Democrat hopes to ‘make a difference’ in the GOP’s budget
As negotiations over the state budget take place over the coming months, a Charlotte Democrat is one of a few members of the minority party who is trying to influence what is, and is not, included in the GOP’s final spending plan.
Sen. Joyce Waddell, who has represented the Queen City in the Senate since 2015, was one of four Democrats who joined Republicans in the upper chamber earlier this month and voted to approve their budget proposal for the next two years.
Most Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch, voted against the budget after a five-hour debate on April 16. They slammed Republicans for not investing enough in public schools and not proposing higher raises for teachers and state workers.
But while Waddell and the three other Democrats who voted for the budget have many of those same concerns, they all told The Charlotte Observer they decided to vote for it because they wanted to be involved in negotiations with Republicans as the lengthy process continues.
Waddell said one reason she voted for the budget was because of additional funding it already contains, and more funding she’s advocating for, for Mecklenburg County.
The Senate’s budget proposal, for example, allocates 10 additional assistant district attorneys for Mecklenburg, raising the allocation for the county from 61 to 71. It also provides funding for five new district attorney legal assistant positions for the county.
Waddell told The Observer this week that she’s also pushing for more money for road maintenance in Charlotte through a Department of Transportation program that provides municipalities with financial assistance from the state for municipally maintained roads.
She said she also wants to secure funding for more affordable and subsidized housing for the homeless.
Waddell previously told The Observer that she was concerned the Senate budget didn’t include a bonus for retired public employees in the pension system, also known as a cost-of-living adjustment.
“We want that to be substantial, so that retirees, we’re aging out, and we’ve been in this thing for a long time, so that we can live comfortably, and we can live with what we’ve been promised that we would get as a result of our retirement,” Waddell, 80, told The Observer.
Like the rest of her Democratic colleagues, Waddell said she was concerned about teacher and state worker raises being inadequate, and said she would push for those to be higher.
Waddell also mentioned the Senate GOP’s proposal to eliminate a small division of state government, the Office of Historically Underutilized Businesses, that helps minority-owned businesses seek and secure state contracts.
Several Democrats have raised concerns about the GOP’s plan to cut funding for the HUB office and close it down. Waddell and other Senate Democrats who voted for the budget told The Observer they will advocate for the office and try to remove that provision, and keep the agency in place.
Waddell previously said she was optimistic Democrats can have productive discussions with Republicans as the budget process moves forward.
“This is not the end, this is just the beginning,” Waddell told The Observer. “There’s plenty room for changes, and we expect to see changes, and this gives us an opportunity to discuss, to negotiate, and to make a difference.”
Those potential changes will be discussed over the next several weeks.
Now that the Senate has passed its budget proposal, it’s the House’s turn to finish drafting its own proposal and vote on it. The House is expected to release and vote on its budget plan in late May.
After that, Republicans in both chambers will try to negotiate a final budget they can agree on, and send it to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein.
Those negotiations are conducted by a conference committee, a group of lawmakers appointed by GOP leaders in both chambers to hash out differences and reach an agreement.
Senate leader Phil Berger, the top Republican in the chamber, said Thursday he’ll decide which lawmakers to appoint to that group after the House has released its own budget, and the Senate has identified what the main sticking points are.
In the meantime, Berger said he knows the four Democrats who voted for the budget want to be “involved in the conversation about what the final budget looks like.”
“Clearly, that will be the case,” Berger said.
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 8:00 AM with the headline "How a Charlotte Democrat hopes to ‘make a difference’ in the GOP’s budget."
