RALEIGH, N.C. -- The North Carolina Senate's $20.6 billion budget proposal released Sunday night would put our state's priorities in the wrong place while devaluing vital public services and the people who provide them.

The budget plan in combination with the Senate's tax plan – which includes effective tax increases on poor and the middle class while slashing taxes for the wealthy and corporations – eliminates hundreds of vital public health and safety jobs and jeopardizes public safety and infrastructure needs for the state.

"It is easy to say that you're going to slow the growth in spending," said SEANC Executive Director Dana Cope, "but when our roads, schools and prisons are falling apart, and when salaries and benefits for our public sector jobs are not competitive with the private sector, and when population growth continues to increase resulting in even greater demands on public services, you're asking for a disaster."

The Senate budget would wipe out nearly 1,600 jobs, with the Departments of Public Safety and Health and Human Services bearing the brunt of the cuts. It also proposes closing several prisons including Bladen, Duplin, Robeson, Wayne, Buncombe, Orange and parts of the Western Youth Institution. The budget also would close Lenoir, Buncombe and Richmond Youth Development Centers, and eliminates 50 positions from the DHHS Oral Health section.

"The Oral Health section of DHHS would be devastated by this proposal," Cope said. "Those 50 positions protect the dental health of this state's most vulnerable citizens: poor and impoverished children. Let's leave that program alone — it works and helps keep our children healthy."

"The Senate is also proposing a tax increase on the middle class along with these cuts to public services that would help millionaires get more of our tax dollars," Cope added. "That's not North Carolina values. We are better than that."

SEANC will continue to work with the General Assembly and the governor to keep vital public safety and health jobs that protect citizens, seek fair tax proposals that make sure all citizens pay their fair share including the wealthy and corporations, and properly compensate our state's public employees for their important public services.