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confront
legislators
The long session of the North Carolina General Assembly opened Wednesday, and there are many issues that need attention – something that’s expected in a growing state like ours that’s now the tenth most populated state in the country.
Two issues that will especially impact Columbus County are the hog farm moratorium and counties’ forced participation in Medicaid reimbursements.
The state enforced a hog farm moratorium in 2003 after numerous complaints statewide about foul odors and serious environmental implications, such as the breach of hog lagoon walls.
The state and hog farm operators have entered a collaborative effort to find better solutions for hog farm waste disposal, but all have been found to be too expensive. Many believe a solution isn’t long in the making, however.
Even though hog farms create jobs and income, most Columbus County residents have great concern about the odors hog farms produce. Unless the odor issue is specifically addressed, we believe the moratorium should remain in place.
On Medicaid, poorer counties like Columbus, which have high percentages of their populations on Medicaid, unfairly bear the brunt of funding Medicaid reimbursements. Where counties like Wake and Mecklenburg pay 3 to 5 percent of the amount they collect in property taxes on Medicaid, Columbus County must allocate more than 30 percent.
Columbus is one of a handful of counties that pay more for Medicaid reimbursement than for education. Medicaid reimbursement is one of the top reasons why there are two North Carolinas. Policies such as this one where poorer counties are penalized for being poor must stop, and there is hope that the issue will be addressed in this session. North Carolina is the last state to force counties to pay Medicaid reimbursements.
There are other key issues, such as reducing classroom sizes, continuing early childhood education programs, the $10 billion school construction bond issue and mental health care reform.
This year, it’s believed that putting the budget together will be relatively easy because revenues have been larger than expected; yet, much of what must be done will require large expenditures. That shouldn’t prevent legislators from doing what’s right.
Ending county Medicaid reimbursements and increasing funding for education may be expensive, but for Columbus County, addressing both issues in this session would do us, and many other poorer counties, a world of good.