SenatorSteveGoss.com

Who is Steve Goss?

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"Extremism flows through many streams, but never finds the river of reason." Steve Goss

Steve Goss is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and former high school teacher and varsity football coach. He has pastored churches in Ashe, Watauga, Duplin, and Montgomery Counties in North Carolina as well as a church in Martinsville, Virginia. He has also served on the mission field in Tokyo, Japan, appointed by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1983.

An Ashe County native, he is married to the former Phyllis Johnson who was born in Wilkes County. Married for 40 years, they have made their home in Boone for the past 20 years after returning from the mission field. Steve has been active in community service particularly in coaching and tutoring youth both in America and Japan.

He has a B.S. in Social Science with a Minor in Education from Appalachian State University and a Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. His daughter and her husband, Kelly and David Sechrist and their three children live in Boone. David owns his own technology business, and Kelly splits her time between volunteer work and raising their three children. Both David and Kelly are graduates of Appalachian State University. His son, Andy was a Civil Engineer with the United States Air Force. After serving a tour in Afghanistan, Andy received an honorable discharge from the US Air Force and now serves in the USAF Reserves. Andy was awarded an Afghanistan Campaign medal, an Army Accommodation medal, a NATO medal, and a Global War on Terrorism medal. He and his two daughters, Madison and Brianna, make their home in Niceville, Florida.

Over the years, Steve has remained an active participant in the community. In Ashe County, he served as chair of the Heart Fund Drive and is a past member of the Board of Directors of ADAP (Adult Developmental Assistance Program). As a varsity football coach, he was president of the four country District 7 2A Football Conference that fielded teams from Ashe, Wilkes, Alleghany, and Surry Counties. In other places of ministry, he has been involved in organizing a successful Community Coordination Group leading to an 80% drop in local crime within a year of its inception. Additionally, he has worked in bringing churches of widely diverse backgrounds together for worship, sports, and other common activities. He actively worked with the NAACP in Duplin County, seeking to bring a sense of fairness to all schools throughout the county. For his efforts, he was appointed to the School-Community Relations Board. The voice of Steve Goss has always been considered a voice of reason. One of his favorite sayings exemplifies Steve's beliefs, "Extremism flows through many streams, but never finds the river of reason." He believes government should be about the people, not the politicians.

Over the past four years in the legislature, Senator Goss has worked hard to ensure North Carolinians the quality of life they deserve. His diligence and hard work have earned him a place of leadership in Raleigh. He currently serves as the Senate Chair of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Transportation and the Co-chair of the Sub-committee on Appropriations for Transportation. This past year, he was also appointed as the Senate Chair of the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee, an appointment that speaks highly of his insight and character. Senator Goss also serves on the Finance, Appropriations, Commerce, Emergency Management, and Health Care committees as well as the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Education. Senator Goss feels that the real power and ability to make things happen in Raleigh comes through hard work in the committees and leadership positions.

The Senate and House have both passed the state budget, and Governor Perdue has signed it into law — on time and in place for the start of the new Fiscal Year for the first time since 2003. I believe the budget is a thorough blueprint for our state as we come out of this awful recession and keeps us on track for the recovery. It helps small businesses, protects classroom teachers, supports our community colleges and universities, and prepares us for the future.

First, let me tell you what’s not in it: no pay cuts or pay raises, no mandated furloughs, no mass layoffs, and no new tax increases. In the aftermath of the Great Recession and historic budget shortfalls, that was quite a feat.

CUTTING SPENDING
This budget takes us back to 2006-2007 levels at under $19 billion. We have made difficult cuts — we’ve cut spending by $800 million in this budget and we’ve identified another $518 million in cuts if Congress does not come through with their federal health care matching funds. In all, the budget has been cut by around $3 billion over the last two years without even taking into account the federal recovery funds that helped us protect education and health care for the needy.

SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESSES AND CREATING JOBS
The budget includes a tax credit for 125,000 small businesses (most of which have less than 10 employees) that employ 500,000 people in our state. It lowers the cost of maintaining and adding jobs in North Carolina for the next two years by allowing a refundable income tax credit to a small business equal to 25% of the amount it paid in unemployment insurance tax on wages paid to employees.

The budget also includes:
• Loans to help small businesses keep their doors open and funds to help small businesses leverage federal entrepreneur grants
• Restores funds for Small Business Centers at 58 community colleges, which supports the development of new businesses and the growth of existing businesses by being a community-based provider of training, counseling, and resource information
• Builds the “In-source NC” database to help NC companies find and use other NC companies for supplies and services

PROTECTING EDUCATION

The budget works to protect classroom teachers and minimize cuts to K-12 education. We were able to protect an estimated 1,700 teaching positions by adjusting the Education Lottery receipts budgeted for classroom teachers.

It also:

• Provides funding for handheld diagnostic devises, giving teachers a high-tech tool for measuring student progress.
• Preserves recurring funding for dropout prevention grants
• Fully funds enrollment growth at community colleges, which has grown by over 30,000 students this year alone
• Fully funds enrollment growth at universities, and removes any proposed cap on enrollment
• Provides $33 million for community colleges to purchase vital health, science, engineering, and technology equipment

PROVIDING FOR THE PEOPLE OF OUR STATE
• Helps working families with health insurance costs; adds 2,750 more kids to Health Choice for a total of 137,789 children
• Restores damaging cuts to the mental health system
• Continues North Carolina’s landmark per year investment in cancer research
• Statewide expansion of CJLEADS, a new data system to track probationers

We have worked well with our counterparts in the House, and this is truly a compromise budget where, in most cases, we met in the middle. In North Carolina, we have a long tradition of being a state where people want to live and work, to raise their families, and to retire. The priorities we fund help shape that quality of life. Even in the toughest of times, we have come together to craft a budget that is, I believe, a strong and appropriate plan to lead our state into brighter days.

The full budget is here:
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2009/Bills/Senate/PDF/S897v8.pdf

The spending and reduction summaries:
http://www.ncleg.net/sessions/2009/budget/2010/SB897_Joint%20Conference%20Committee%20Report%2006-28-10.pdf

As always, please don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts on the budget or any other issue you feel is important and thank you for the opportunity to serve you in the Senate.

Authorized and Paid for by Steve Goss for NC Senate