Tillis: State $$ not always easy to find

Senate Bill 13, which scrapes a bunch of money out of various state accounts this year to help balance next year's budget, depends on a number of reserve accounts. You take money out of those accounts — or plan to put less in them at the end of this year — and there's a little more for the regular budget.

In reporting one of several budget stories in recent weeks I tried to determine how much the state had in all reserve accounts, and it took several phone calls to three state departments to understand, with really only limited certainty, how much the accounts they were responsible for had in reserve. There doesn't seem to be a place the public can find this information all gathered together, and yet "how much money does North Carolina have in the bank," seems a reasonable question.

Speaker of the House Thom Tillis said today that the process with S13 has been a similar experience, showing that it's not an easy question to answer, even if you're speaker of the house. Said Tillis:

"No, its not. And that's why we're going to keep on hammering it. Sometimes we have to ask the same people the same question more than once."

Update: Just for the record, that's like rule two of journalism.