First budget sent to Gov. Josh Stein includes taking some appointment power away
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- The General Assembly sent Gov. Josh Stein his first comprehensive budget bill.
- Certain state agencies may opt out of DOA oversight on procurement and real property.
- The bill shifts some board appointments to Republican Council of State members.
Happy Independence Day weekend to you, and welcome to our Under the Dome newsletter. I’m Capitol bureau chief Dawn Vaughan, and this edition focuses on Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and the executive branch.
The General Assembly sent Stein his first comprehensive budget bill — a year overdue — on Thursday, and he has 10 days to take action on the bill that also garnered support from several of his fellow Democrats.
It was written by Republicans in the legislature, which has meant for at least the past several years that there will be policy in it that impacts the governor. And notably, taking some power away.
“I have 10 days from today to respond,” Stein told The News & Observer as he talked with reporters Thursday afternoon. “It is a long, complicated bill, and yes, it has good provisions, it has some bad provisions. My job as governor is to weigh those to determine what my action will be.”
Power shifts in executive branch
The budget bill includes several policy changes that take appointment power from the governor and give it to some Republican members of the Council of State. It also removes some control over property from the Department of Administration, which is a Cabinet agency of the Stein administration, and gives it offices held by Republicans: State Auditor Dave Boliek, Labor Commissioner Luke Farley and State Treasurer Brad Briner.
If the budget becomes law, those state agencies can bypass the procurement process if they “elect to be exempted from oversight by the Department of Administration on the matters of purchasing, contracts, acquisition and maintenance of real property, leasing of office space, and disposition of surplus property.”
Major property matters must be approved by the Council of State, which includes Stein, Boliek, Farley and Briner along with six other statewide elected officials.
The budget also gives Boliek more power, allowing him to work with the State Bureau of Investigation and prosecutors.
And the Department of Administration, which sends an inventory of state government land and buildings to the General Assembly, will now be required to, if a building is vacant, report how many months the vacancy has existed.
Other provisions take some appointments from the governor and give them to Republican Council of State members and the General Assembly. Examples include reducing Stein’s appointments to the North Carolina Real Estate Commission from seven to two and adding four by the speaker and Senate leader, one by the auditor and two by the labor commissioner.
And the North Carolina Historical Commission in the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources now has 11 members appointed by the governor; that would drop to three by the governor. Four would be made by the General Assembly and four by the labor commissioner.
The budget also shifts the weight of appointments on the State Banking Commission from the governor to the treasurer and General Assembly, reducing the governor’s appointments on the commission from 12 to two.
Stein: ‘The legislature cannot hold itself back’
I asked Stein about the appointments shift, and he said he’s reviewing that, too, as he weighs taking action over the next week.
“I wish the bill were exclusively a budget bill that deals with what are the financial needs of the state, in order to serve people, to keep them safe, to educate them, to ensure they have health care,” he said.
“But the legislature cannot hold itself back, and resist putting in substantive pieces of legislation that have nothing to do with the budget, and so those are things that we have to evaluate and weigh.”
Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said they considered past court rulings when they decided to give some appointments to other members of the executive branch rather than the legislature when they take them from the governor.
Hall acknowledged the move was partisan.
“We agree with those folks on more policy items than we do the governor, and so would rather see them have those appointments,” Hall told The N&O as he talked to reporters after a budget vote.
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said the Council of State decisions "are a recognition of North Carolina’s executive branch in our constitution, and the fact that the (state) Supreme Court has basically confirmed the view that a lot of us have held for a very long period of time — is that North Carolina’s history is replete with concerns about executive power and the need to make sure that executive power is spread amongst executive officers.”
Thanks for reading. Reach me at dvaughan@newsobserver.com or our entire politics team at dome@newsobserver.com.
This story was originally published July 5, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline "First budget sent to Gov. Josh Stein includes taking some appointment power away."
