The North Carolina General Assembly passed the new state budget into law in June, increasing teacher salaries by an average of 6.5 percent. Critics of the legislation contend that the pay increase is neither sufficient nor equitably distributed among educators.

The NC General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto on June 12, and the Republican-written budget became law July 1. 

Michael L. Walden, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and extension economist at NC State, said that teachers and state employees made out the best under the budget. Nine thousand state employees who work full-time will now earn at least $15 per hour. This includes some of NC State’s custodial, janitorial and support staff. Specific budget appropriations on campus have not been determined, pending further guidance from the UNC System.

“Probably the most significant changes were for teachers,” Walden said. “The other significant feature is the setting of a minimum wage for many state workers. That could mean a significant increase for them. For others, I think the raises are fairly modest. Inflation is running between 2.5 and 3 percent, so you need at least 3 percent to tread water.” 

Governor Cooper had written a budget proposing an 8 percent average raise for educators, with all public school teachers receiving at least a 5 percent bump. However, NC GOP leaders wrote and passed legislation for the 6.5 percent raise, against the wishes of Democratic legislators in the General Assembly. 

Representative Joe John, a Democrat representing District 40, said that Democratic legislators members were shut out of the budget process.

“The first thing to understand about the budget process was that there wasn’t any,” John said. “It was three or four members of the majority party, behind closed doors, without any input from members of the minority party.”

North Carolina operates on a two-year budget. The 2018 process consisted generally of alterations to the biennial budget passed in 2017. This year’s budget amendment was presented to legislators as a ‘conference report.’ Under the General Assembly’s rules, a conference report cannot be amended.

Representative Chuck McGrady, a Republican representing District 117, said that he was critical of the budget amendment process utilized by party leaders.

“I would admit that the process was not one of transparency and inclusiveness in the amendment to the adopted budget,” McGrady said. “I would have preferred to have it a different way.”

According to the NC Department of Public Instruction, teachers are receiving an average 6.5 percent pay raise. First-year educators will be paid $35,000 and will receive a $1000 annual pay increase until they reach a $50,000 salary at 15 years of experience. At 25+ years of experience, teachers’ annual salaries are raised to $52,000.

Rep. McGrady said that the focus of these raises was to keep those teachers in North Carolina who may have otherwise left the state for financial reasons.   

“We were concerned about losing the starting teachers going to adjoining states,” McGrady said. “We’ve spread out the teacher pay and the salary adjustments across a much broader group of teachers.” 

Rep. John was critical of the salary adjustment, and suggested that first-year teachers and the more experienced ones deserve more.

“[The budget] picked winners and losers among both teachers and the state employees,” John said. “The more experienced teachers essentially got zero raise. In the budget as passed, there were many who got zero or less than a 1 percent raise. It wasn’t an equitable appropriation among all teachers. 

In response to the salary bump, some educators say that it doesn’t go far enough. Mark Jewell, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said that the claim of teacher raises is largely “smoke and mirrors.”

“They’re saying, ‘Look at this big pay raise,’ and it couldn’t be farther from the truth,” Jewell said. “Not everyone got a pay raise. Better educators receive nothing at the top of the salary schedule. We have a salary schedule that now begins at $35,000 and ends at $52,000. That’s not nearly enough to recruit and retain public school educators in the state of North Carolina.”

Jewell said that while teacher raises are a step in the right direction, North Carolina still lags behind the national averages for education spending.

“We are $9,000 below the national average in educator pay,” Jewell said. “We are $2,500 per child below the national average in per-pupil spending. Teachers are having to pay out-of-pocket for pencils, paper and toilet paper for their classrooms, for their students.”

Rep. McGrady said that North Carolina teachers will not get to where they need to be financially in a short amount of time.  

“It’s a 19.1 percent increase from 2014 to now and I suspect it can continue,” McGrady said. “We didn’t get there in one year and it’s going to take a lot more than one year to get out of the hole we were in.”

While some lawmakers view the teachers’ raises as a success, Jewell views this year’s budget amendment as a missed opportunity.

“This is a state right now that has 35 kids in a fourth-grade classroom because we haven’t been able to keep up with the building structures across the state,” Jewell said. “This is a General Assembly that has again not listened to the needs of the communities and the wishes of the citizens. We deserve a world-class public school system and they are not providing that right now.”

Jewell added that the state is falling short on their constitutional responsibility to ensure safe and sound public education for every child.

Rep. John said that he thinks much of the budget-writing process was flawed because of the lack of input from Democrats, and he voiced his concern regarding the distribution of salary adjustments. 

“Some raises for some teachers, and some state employees,” John said. “The state employees’ raise to $15 an hour; that only affected 9,000 state employees, and left 45,000 state employees who simply got the 2 percent. Overall … it’s a missed opportunity. A large number of teachers, particularly the more experienced teachers, were just completely left out.”

Representatives who wrote the budget, Nelson Dollar, Brent Jackson and Harry Brown, were unavailable for comment.