LUMBERTON — A two-year spending proposal unveiled Tuesday by Gov. Roy Cooper contains more than twice the amount of money House Republicans wants for school construction, but less for Robeson County than the House plan.
Cooper’s spending plan, parts of which were revealed in Greensboro, includes a $3.9 billion bond referendum to raise money for school construction projects. If the bond measure is approved by voters in 2020, $2 billion would go to public schools and $500 million each for the community college and University of North Carolina systems. Other money would benefit water systems, the North Carolina Zoo and Museum of History.
Cooper, a Democrat, is to release his full budget proposal on Wednesday.
Robeson County would stand to receive a little more than $41.5 million, according to a spending plan fact sheet.
A plan unveiled Thursday by House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, calls for voters to decide in a 2020 referendum if they want the state to raise $1.9 billion to fund school construction by selling bonds. House Bill 241 designates $51,674,825 million for Robeson County. The bill calls for $400 million of the $1.9 billion to be split evenly between the University of North Carolina system and the state’s community colleges.
Under the Republican plan Robeson County would get the fourth largest funding allocation in the state. The biggest allotment, $109 million, would go to Wake County schools. Johnston County’s public schools would receive $77 million, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg would get $61 million.
Under Cooper’s proposal, a little more than $94.4 million would go to Wake County, Johnston County would get about $45.3 million and Charlotte-Mecklenburg would receive more than $86.8 million.
The Republican bond plan was given unanimous approval Tuesday by the House K-12 Education Committee, said Rep. Charles Graham, a committee member. The legislation, House Bill 241, was referred to the Finance Committee.
“It was a very strong vote, bipartisan,” said Graham, a Democrat from Lumberton.
The Senate is expected to have its own plan for school construction, which is pay as you go and does not include taking on debt.
Budget talks will proceed for months, and there will be questions and discussions about the governor’s proposal, Graham said. A topic he wants to discuss is school construction needs in rural North Carolina.
Graham said he wants to ask what more can be done to help rural counties meet those needs.
“The speaker shares the priority of offering every school system support for capital needs through a bond proposal to voters, but doubling the recommended borrowing limit of North Carolina’s Debt Affordability Advisory Committee — and the governor’s own initial proposal of $2 billion — is not an appropriate path for North Carolina taxpayers,” said Joseph Kyzer, a spokesman for Rep. Moore.
Cooper’s plan could threaten the state’s credit rating, he said.
“The speaker’s bond proposal strikes a better financial balance to offer meaningful assistance to every school system while staying within the state’s consensus debt limit and maintaining North Carolina’s unanimous AAA credit rating, revenue surpluses, and savings reserves,” Kyzer said.
Rep. Graham has introduced his legislation to return longevity pay to teachers. It was sent to the House K-12 Education Committee.
Cooper plan calls for giving teachers an average pay raise of 9.1 percent over two years, with no teacher receiving less than a 3 percent raise in either year.
“North Carolina ranks 37th in teacher pay, and that’s not good enough,” the governor said. “We need to put our schools first, and that starts with paying teachers and principals better and treating them like the professionals they are.”
The plan also calls for the elimination of salary plateaus for veteran teachers, and allowing teachers with up to 30 years of service to earn more for each year of service.
“Under the current teacher pay plan enacted by legislators, teachers who keep working beyond 15 years receive only one pay raise of $2,000 after their 24th year of service,” a press release from Cooper’s office reads in part.
Cooper also proposes to restore extra pay for teachers who hold a master’s degree in the subject they teach and eliminating the requirement that teachers pay for their own substitutes when they take a personal leave day.
Senate Leader Phil Berger countered Tuesday that Republicans already have addressed teacher pay.
A statement from Berger’s office reads in part, “Beginning in 2014 when they provided teachers the largest raise in the country, legislative Republicans have taken historic steps to raise educator pay in North Carolina. In the last five years, Republicans have enacted five consecutive pay raises, and teacher salary increases have been at or near the highest in the nation for three of those years.”
The average base salary for a North Carolina teacher increased by $8,700, or nearly 20 percent, since the 2014 school year, according to the Berger statement. More than 40,000 teachers — close to half of all public school teachers in the state — will have received at least a $10,000 pay raise by the 2018-19 school year.
“In fact, over a 30-year career, a teacher will earn $237,200 more on the 2018-19 salary schedule than he or she would have earned under the old Democrat plan,” the statement reads in part.
