- Coming up on State Lines, a one on one conversation with North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall next.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.

[upbeat music] ♪ - And welcome back to State Lines.

We're doing a series of year enders and year kickoffs of one on one interviews with state leaders.

And one of the top two is House Speaker Destin Hall, who's here.

First term as House Speaker, you've been around a while, rules chair, and you've climbed up through the ranks, earned the trust of the caucus.

Sir, thanks for being on the show.

- Honored to do it.

Thanks for having me.

- I want to ask you, what do you think's the state of this state right now politically?

I read the Twitter, I read the newspapers, I read some of your op-eds.

Should we be feeling good?

Should we be feeling neutral?

Bad?

What's the deal?

- Well, I think if you look back over the last 15 years, since Republicans got the majority in the General Assembly, we've seen tremendous growth in this state, both economically and our population.

Business after business coming here, record after record being set with jobs announcements.

We continue to be ranked number one for business in publication after publication.

So we want to continue those policies.

And I think people are seeing that.

I think that's why you've seen Republicans do very well here for the last decade and a half.

- And you're coming in across America.

What are the U.S.

House speakers to take a gavel anywhere of our U.S.

states?

And over across the aisle in the Senate, the longest serving state Senate leader in America, Mr.

Berger, you've got also Josh Stein with a lot of tenure in the Senate AG and now governor.

Tell me about the dynamic.

Let's start with Josh Stein.

How does he compare with you as speaker, him being governor versus you as rules chair and him as the AG?

- Yeah, so we missed each other in the General Assembly.

As I was coming into the General Assembly, he was going out and becoming AG.

So we really didn't know each other well.

We just met as he became governor and as I became speaker.

I'll say he's he stays in touch with us more than Governor Cooper did.

And, you know, we've worked with him where we could and we've stayed in touch.

And we're always going to have areas of sincere disagreement.

We work together where we can.

- Is there a part in the policy that there's public disagreements always between Republicans and Democrats?

But when you get backstage on that personal level on the phone, is there an understanding between the parties that, hey, on this one, I'm a Republican, I have to be true to my colors?

Or how does that work when you really have to work a deal?

- Well, I think, you know, we're not afraid to acknowledge, you know, what our principles are and that we've got to stick to those principles.

And sometimes there are issues where we just have to agree to disagree.

And that's OK.

Governor Stein's an attorney, as Senator Berger is and as I am.

And we're used to sort of dealing with other parties who don't always agree with you.

You have to work out the best deal you can on the things that you can't agree on and try to work on the other stuff later.

- If you're a voter, what's the sentiment right now?

If you're GOP voters, you can speak for them.

They elected you.

But if you're a Democrat or Republican or independent, what should you feel right now?

They've seen a lot happen in this state.

They've also seen a lot not get done.

- Well, I think, again, voters should look at the body of work the last 15 years and see all the successes that we've had as a state.

You know, right now we continue to work through a state budget, but that's an important document.

It's something that really should we really should spend a lot of time on to make sure that we get correct.

And I think the voters of the state can be proud of what we've done the last decade and a half.

- Great set up.

It was my next question about this budget.

People we've talked about it on State Lines with the reporters and the panelists and the consultants.

North Carolina, they say, doesn't have a budget.

It does have a budget.

It was passed a few years ago and amended versus a comprehensive state budget bill.

Does one matter over the other?

Or are we playing a mental game here in public discourse?

- Well, you are right.

You know, we continue to have a budget and the way that our state operates.

It's unlike D.C.

You know, the money doesn't cut off just because we don't have a new budget.

We have a budget in place right now.

It's the one from 2023.

It was one of the largest budgets our state had ever passed.

There was a lot of federal dollars that flow through that, but that budget.

And so now where we're at is trying to update that budget and things like raises for teachers and state employees and a whole host of other things that we've got to get right.

And that's what we're still debating right now.

- Do you like that kind of doing business because they're in the old days where they would shut the they would shut down the state government until the House and Senate governor could reach a deal.

It's a new era.

But is it the right era we should is it?

Should we expect something different or is this the way it's going to be?

- Well, you know, I'll say this.

I think the way that we do budgeting with the continuing money is going until we get an updated budget makes sense, because that means that we don't have teachers and state employees going without a paycheck, like we've seen in the past in this state, particularly before my party took control.

So now what happens is as we work out the final final versions of a updated budget, those folks continue to be paid during that time.

- How far apart are you with the Senate leadership?

And at this point, it's how far apart are you with Phil Berger on getting a deal done?

Because I'm going to go into triggers here in a minute.

We'll explain that.

But Grand Canyon ditch in the backyard.

How far do you have to jump to make a deal and meet in the middle?

- Well, it's in the eye of the beholder.

But I'll say this, Senator Berger and I have worked together for a long time.

I was rules chair before I was the speaker.

And so I was involved with a lot of those negotiations with Speaker Moore and Senator Berger.

The chambers have had disagreements in the past.

We've been able to work out a resolution.

And I'm confident that we'll work one out here as well, that ends up being in the best interest of the folks in the state.

- What's been the most frustrating obstacle in terms of a policy that you haven't quite cracked that nut to reach where you both could come together?

Is there one thing in particular?

- Well, I think if you look at our discussions right now, again, between both chambers, it really comes down to an issue of tax policy and an issue of salaries.

You know what we're going to pay our teachers and state employees, our law enforcement officers across the state.

And so there's some disagreements there.

I wouldn't say it's this huge wide chasm.

Both sides have some sincerely held beliefs on those things and have different reasons for those beliefs.

But that's the beauty of a bicameral legislature.

They have different ideas.

But as I said, we've always been able to work those things out in the past.

And I think we will this time as well.

- I've heard you talk about pay raises.

What is the status of pay raises for state employees?

What is earned in a pay raise versus what is deserved given the economic climate?

Because I know you've had some thoughts on that.

- So, you know, you have to look at inflation.

And, you know, what we saw under the Biden administration was out of control inflation.

The last budget, the full budget that we had passed was in 2023.

And when we passed that, Joe Biden had 15 months left on his presidency.

Since that time, we saw the inflation through the end of his term.

We've seen population growth in this state.

So you have to look at a number of different metrics and make sure that we're keeping up with those inflationary pressures, because everybody wants to have good teachers.

They want to have good law enforcement officers, DMV employees.

And we've got to take care of those folks.

And so that's what we're working on now.

- What can a state legislator do?

Not a House speaker, but whether you're Democrat, Republican in that House or Senate.

What can you do for inflation?

Because affordability will be a national issue.

But can you do much about it other than react to it?

- Well, so what we try to focus on is giving folks more of their hard earned money back.

So, you know, we've continued to do tax relief across the state.

We're actually looking in the on the House side right now at some property tax relief.

A lot of folks are feeling the pain of their property taxes rising.

We've also done some things on energy costs.

We passed a bill called the Power Bill Reduction Act that is going to save 13 billion dollars for the rate payers in the coming years.

And so anywhere that we can find to help reduce the cost to everyday people, we're trying to do that.

And that doesn't necessarily get at the inflationary issue, but it keeps more money in their pockets.

- On property tax relief or reform, how realistic is it?

It's a far cry when you launch a study committee in the winter.

I know how that game's played.

A report comes out.

What happens this spring or even for the long session?

Is it serious business?

- Well, yes, it is serious business.

And I'll tell you this, my intent and the intent of my colleagues and I in the House is to pass some legislation in the short session when we come in in April or May.

And that's why I've set this committee up.

What we've seen really across the state and it's been different in different areas, but really across the state, property values have increased.

And we know that one of the functions of property tax is the value of that property.

And so folks have seen those bills go up and we're really going to look at both sides of the ledger, not just the issue of local property taxes, but we're taking a look at local governments.

Are they wisely spending these dollars?

We think some of the larger counties, some of the larger cities probably are not probably spending money on things that are not essential services, not things dealing with law enforcement and EMS, but things dealing with stuff that local government really shouldn't be spending its time and attention on, like DEI related policies.

We're going to look at what we might be able to do on the expense side to decrease some of that from being spent at the local government level.

- But we're told local property and county property taxes are revenue neutral.

The price of your house will go up, but your taxes shouldn't.

But yet everyone complains about rising property taxes.

What is it we're hearing as families and taxpayers?

What's actually happening out there across the state as you see it?

- Well, a lot of local governments do keep it revenue neutral.

You know, that is that the property values go up.

They may lower the rate, but many of them don't.

Many of them continue to increase those figures.

And so that's what we're taking a look at.

And every town and every county across the state does it in a different way.

But the one thing that we've really heard from across the state, folks are just dealing with these expensive.

And it's just another line item coming out of the budgets of working families.

And so if we can do anything at a state level to try to fix that, we want to do that.

- Let's go back to the state revenue outlook.

I mean, governor says we're going to hit deficits.

I know you've expressed concern with your leadership that revenues are going to streamline more towards, I guess, zero sum, if not a deficit.

And Senator Berger says let's cut taxes and keep stimulating that economy, because every time he says he's cut taxes, revenues have gone up.

Put this around the kitchen table.

Help us understand.

- So the differences between the House and the Senate, it's really not a question of cutting taxes.

Both sides agree we want to continue to deliver tax relief across the board, whether that's income tax, whether that's property taxes, fees from state government, you name it.

We both agree we want to continue to cut those things where we can.

The difference really is in the speed at which we're going to do those things.

If you look at 2010, compare that to where we are today.

We were one of the worst states in the country for income taxes.

Now we're one of the best, certainly one of the best in our region.

There's a reason people and businesses are moving here.

And so what we're looking at now under our current law, we have a set of triggers in place that were set in 2023.

And again, when those were set, Joe Biden had 15 months left on his presidency.

We've seen inflation since then.

We've seen population growth.

So what we're trying to do is index those figures for that inflation, make those numbers be apples to apples between now and 2023.

And if we do that, we can continue to responsibly cut those taxes and continue to spur economic growth in this state.

- I've heard this from senators coming on the show.

Senator Berger is on late in '25 with me and he says, you know, we had a deal back in 2023 and they have reneged on that deal.

And I said, well, Dustin Hall is the new boss and Tim Moore's gone.

He brought up a point.

He said you were a conferee during that budget negotiation and you in a way put your name on that deal.

Why did you why didn't you keep that word to him?

I keep hearing about it.

- So every biennium, we have a new legislature and one legislature can't bind another.

Laws are passed and then later general assemblies change those laws all the time.

That's literally what the General Assembly exists for, is to create new laws and to change old ones.

And so whatever folks may have agreed to in 2023, it doesn't bind you for history for the rest of time and that you can't change the law at all.

And I know that it would not be Senator Berger's position that we can never change tax laws again.

I'll note that in the proposed Senate budget this year, they changed that tax policy.

They wanted to cut those a bit quicker even than what the current law does.

And so if we look back at 2023 at the time, those numbers made sense.

But again, because of that inflation, because of the population growth, the things factors have changed.

Just the facts surrounding that have changed to a point where now we need to readjust those to responsibly cut those taxes.

- Is there in your philosophy as a state leader, is there an appropriate income tax rate that someone should or should not pay?

And the states still remain healthy and grow?

- Yeah, the best, the most appropriate and best tax rate is the lowest one among our competitor states.

And if you look around us, the South in particular right now, you've seen a lot of economic growth.

We're competing with South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, a state like Tennessee.

You know, they have a zero percent income tax, but they might have a higher sales tax.

They might have a higher property tax.

They also don't have a world class university system like ours.

You know, the University of Tennessee system is a great one.

The UNC system is the best in the world, especially if you look at it as per the cost.

It's one of the cheapest and most valuable educations you can receive anywhere.

And so we've got to balance that.

We've got to be able to invest in those assets that really make this state stand out, while at the same time making sure we're staying competitive on a tax level against our competing states.

- I know you've proudly said you want to follow conservative principles in your leadership as the House Speaker.

And I want to ask you about the question, because you've talked about investing in the UNC system.

Disclaimer, we're part of the UNC system.

But there are conservatives out there that are Republicans being elected because they like to cut and you can't cut enough.

And, you know, you can cut taxes to zero and cut.

What does it mean to be a conservative?

When I hear a leader say, invest in the universities, let's watch what we're collecting versus let's cut, reduce, give more money and more power back to local governments and to the people.

- Yeah, so I think it comes first with looking at taxes.

And we've continued to cut that tax burden really across the board to the citizens of this state.

In terms of education, I think it's critical that folks receive a good education that's based on the things you need to know.

We're not wasting a bunch of money, again, on things like DEI and degrees in basket weaving or you name it.

And we've done a lot of things, a lot of policy reforms within the UNC system to make sure they're focusing on the things that are needed right now in the economy, that kids who are going into that UNC system, they're getting degrees that are going to help them get their next job, that are going to help our state grow economically.

And so it's a question of, you know, we want to invest smartly in state assets.

We don't want to overdo it because that's when you get outside of a conservative principle, which is, you know, you're not afraid to make investments, but you're going to watch those investments.

You're going to make sure that the money's not wasted.

- Let's go back to kindergarten through 12th grade public education funding.

It looks like we'll end this year.

No Leandro ruling that so many were hoping for or I guess hoping one way or the other to put this at ease.

How should taxpayers view this current climate where charters are out there getting a cut of the public action and growing, homeschool growing, private schools, tuition can be paid for whole or in part, and then the public education system.

It is a very loud constituent group.

If I'm sitting there watching all this unfold, how should I feel?

- So the first thing that folks need to understand is the way that our state funds education and has for a long time is by the students.

So it's per pupil funding each district, depending on the number of kids that they have, they get a certain dollar figure per kid.

And so what we've seen us do over the last decade or so, we've reformed that.

We've allowed more charter schools.

We've allowed the opportunity scholarships.

So if a parent has a child that would do better in a private school for whatever given reason, they can take the funds that their system would get for their child and send those and take their child to a private school with those same funds.

It really comes down to a matter of school choice.

You know, we think parents are in the best position to be able to decide what's best for their child, what school that they should go to.

And it creates somewhat of a competition between the public charter schools, the traditional public schools and the private schools that we think ultimately makes all three better.

We think that all three play a role in this, but it's got to be really an all of the above approach for our state on education.

- Many public school advocates, I couldn't name you one by name, but I get the vibe.

They say if I'm in a public school, I've got to take every kid that wants to come to my school, regardless of their situation at home or.

Are they special needs?

English is a second language.

But these private schools can take public money, but take the kids they want and make it easier.

Is that a fair critique of the policies of school choice in North Carolina?

And do you see any way of you could relax regulations on public schools, let them do what private schools do?

- Yeah.

So there's always opportunities for us to be able to let teachers teach.

And I'm a big believer in whether it's a traditional public school, a charter school or private school, the teachers there because they're trained to do a job and they're competent.

That's why they were hired.

So you need to let them go and do their job, let them go and teach.

And this is a debate we've had for a long time.

And we've implemented the science reading and a number of other policy changes.

But at the end of the day, the parents are in the best decision to make the choice among those options.

And so it doesn't mean we don't continue to invest in our public schools.

In fact, that's one of the things in the House budget we're wanting to do.

We're wanting to take us to number one and starting teacher pay in the South.

And we can do that.

We've got the money to do those things.

We've got to continue to invest in that system, though, at the same time implementing some of those policy changes and letting teachers teach.

- Would it be expensive to bring teacher pay, traditional public school teacher pay to the number one in the South?

- Well, you know, you're talking about the scale statewide and the scale.

I mean, you know, total dollars.

Yeah.

I mean, it's always a lot of money.

But if you look at it scaled for what the state spends each year, it's something that we can very easily do.

And again, continuing to to budget conservatively in this state, we can make that happen.

Again, we did that in the House budget that we've proposed again, making us number one in the South and starting teacher pay.

- But what do you make of over 100 of the 115 school districts reporting enrollment declines?

Do you hold them accountable for losing students in the marketplace?

Do they get penalized for that?

What do you what do you see, especially in these rural counties?

And they go, we don't have as many students as we had last year.

- Yeah, well, there's a number of reasons for those things.

I think when we came out of covid during covid, we saw a lot of kids who they were having to stay at home.

And so many parents began to homeschool actually during covid.

And they just kept doing that afterwards.

And so as post covid, we've seen a lot of changes in the numbers in school systems.

There's various reasons for that.

And some of it may be because parents in a given area don't think that their particular school is doing a good job.

There are other reasons that parents may decide to go elsewhere.

But at the end of the day, our education system exists to educate students.

And that's priority one.

And again, parents being in the best spot to decide where their kid can be educated best.

Those are the policies we ought to continue to promote.

- The opportunity scholarship voucher program.

Do you see it needing more funding to market demand or do you think you've reached that equilibrium where now we have just a stable education policy, traditional charter private?

- Well, it's more of a free market policy now.

Right now, it's fully funded.

That is the children who want their parents, who want to get those opportunity scholarships.

That funding is there as we move forward.

If more folks want those things, I anticipate that we'll support that because, again, it's done on a per pupil basis.

These are funds that if that child went to the traditional public school, they the school would be getting those funds.

But the child's not going there.

So the parents able to take those dollars elsewhere.

- Well, are you ready to solve the Medicaid problem in North Carolina?

Because I got I got to ask you to try to three hundred nineteen million dollars in state funding shortages per the Stein administration.

Do you believe that is an accurate number as they released it?

What back in September of 2025?

Is it that short?

- Well, it's hard to tell, you know, and I think some history is important here.

The way that we have funded Medicaid in the past is, you know, we come in and we we give a tranche of money over to the governor to administer Medicaid.

And then we provide oversight.

We look to see where the costs are spiking, where do we need to go in and make some reforms?

And we've worked with the governor on those things.

And that was the case under Governor Cooper for many years.

We never had a real scenario where we just appropriated a year's worth of money to Medicaid and said, have at it.

You know, let us know when you need more money.

You know, we provide that oversight.

What was different this time around is that we appropriated about six hundred million dollars to Medicaid.

And then about a month or so later, the governor said, I'm going to have to cut the rates because you've not given me the money for the entire year.

And of course, his DHS folks acknowledge that they had enough money to get them essentially through April.

Well, the fiscal year ends at the end of June.

So we're talking about their claim is they didn't have a couple of months at the end of the year funding.

So they had to cut those rates now.

And again, we didn't change the way we had done any of that.

It was a change with the governor's governor.

Stein came in.

He had a different opinion, apparently, on how these things needed to be done.

I'm glad that he has reversed those rate cuts.

They were unnecessary.

And he's now restored those figures back.

And I'm confident that as we've always done in the past, the General Assembly will provide additional funding to that.

But we've also got to get our arms around the cost of Medicaid.

What we've seen in the last few years, the roles of Medicaid continue to grow in this state.

Probably close to a quarter of the people of the state are on Medicaid.

And if you look at some of those numbers, it becomes more and more clear that that perhaps the folks who meet the program requirements, the folks who truly are in need and we need to help, they may be on there.

But there's a lot of folks who maybe don't meet those requirements as well.

And there's Medicaid rules.

- Does that state funding issue you got to deal with in 2026?

Is that hampering any way you're thinking about what you're going to need to do in 2027 and '28 for the one big beautiful bill?

As the federal changes work requirements come online and you have to change state law?

- Well, remember, when we passed Medicaid expansion, one of the things we had in there was work requirements and through a series of court decisions, those were negated.

So, you know, I and my colleagues in the House and I know in the Senate as well on the Republicans side support those work requirements.

And, you know, we've watched the one big beautiful bill.

We've seen some of the policy reforms that are going to be coming down.

A lot of it as to us relates to relates to what I was talking about a moment ago, which is making sure that we're we're getting the folks on those roles who really need the help that.

But we're not overburdening those roles with folks who maybe don't meet the program's actual requirements.

- Do you believe the 319 shortage?

Do you think it would at the end of April, whenever the money is theoretically to run out per Governor Stein?

Do you expect it to meet that deadline?

Are you buying the cash burn rate?

- Well, as always, Medicaid at some point is going to need more money.

I mean, every year we have a budget and we appropriate funds of money.

And yes, in a literal sense, it will run out of money because they can't print it.

We have to give it to them.

We do have some concerns about the the increases in cost over time.

We've seen increase after increase, often without really good explanations.

But that's part of our job is to provide the oversight, to ask those questions, find out where there are inefficiencies in that system.

But yeah, there's no doubt we're going to have to give some more money to Medicaid.

Nobody has ever claimed otherwise.

It was just this rate cut out of left field for whatever reason that the governor's folks felt they needed to do.

- Let's go a little bit more rapid fire here.

Under three minutes redistricting that first and third congressional district in the east.

What made Don Davis's district that first one, the one you went after?

You had an option of four different Democrats to target.

- Yeah.

So it's a national fight.

Many other states are doing this.

We saw Gavin Newsom in California.

He took a map that was already heavily gerrymandered for the Democrats and made it even more so and essentially eliminated just about all the Republicans out of that map.

And so we couldn't sit on the sidelines as we saw that happen.

If you look at North Carolina, that was sort of the logical choice of a seat that was already pretty close.

So we were able to just simply change that district and the one beside of it.

And so now we've we've done that and got some good candidates on our Congress.

- Congressman Murphy lost Republican votes.

They can't make him happy.

- Well, Congressman Murphy is a very popular guy in that part of the world.

And so he can win anywhere in eastern North Carolina.

- Gun legislation, constitutional carry Republicans, you're teasing this grassroots amendment, Second Amendment folks every single session.

It gets so close.

It remains so far away.

Why?

- Well, I think that if you look at what Republicans have supported for the last decade and a half, generally in both the House and the Senate, we've supported that.

It's been at different times.

Now the Senate has a super majority.

They passed it.

We're one we're one vote short in the House, meaning we have to get a Democrat to go along with us on a veto override.

That bill still sits on the calendar.

We're still working on it.

I'm still hopeful that we're going to get that thing overridden by the end of this session.

- Hurricane Helene recovery entering year two.

You happy with what's going on?

Good.

I see solid oversight on a bipartisan basis.

Very quickly.

What do you think?

- Number one priority for us coming into session continues to be today.

We spent over two billion dollars in state funding on it.

It's something we continue to talk about and work on every single day.

We've got to get those folks back in their homes.

We can't let what happened in the past in the eastern part of the state where people were in hotels for a decade.

We can't let that happen in the western part of the state.

We're going to stay on it.

And again, it is our number one priority at the General Assembly.

- And 10 seconds.

Fair game to go back to all these past hurricanes and blame prior politicians and Michael Watley in that Senate race for what they did and didn't do for Florence, Matthew and now Helene.

- Well, I'll say this.

Michael Watley was working to help with Matthew with Hurricane Helene recovery before he was running for U.S.

Senate.

And it speaks to what kind of person he is.

He was on the ground helping us with those things, even when he was at the RNC as the chair.

And I think he's going to win the U.S.

Senate race.

He's going to do a great job and continue to help us with that relief.

- All right, folks, that's the House Speaker Destin Hall.

Thank you, sir, for being on.

And if you have any questions or comments, email us at statelines@pbsnc.org I'm Kelly McCullen Thanks for watching.

♪ - Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.