Senator Bill Cook Legislative Update: VI | Eastern NC Now

News Release:

Budget Negotiations

    At this time, the budget is still under discussion at the North Carolina General Assembly. The Senate offered a compromise to the House of $171 million to be earmarked toward their top priorities of Medicaid and teacher assistants. Furthermore, the Senate has bend over backwards to compromise with the House by accepting over $100 million less in Medicaid, taking teacher tenure out of the equation and offering to fully fund teacher assistants, in exchange for our top priority of providing a significant teacher pay increase. It is disheartening to hear anyone speak against a plan that would provide our public school teachers the largest pay increase in state history, to say the least.

    The previous fiscal year showed school districts statewide with about $678 million of cash on hand. Additionally, in Senate District 1 which consists of: Beaufort, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hyde, Pasquotank and Perquimans counties had a combined total of $21,669,228 cash on hand. The local school districts and superintendents still have flexibility to direct funds for teacher assistants in the second and third grade if that is a top priority for them.

    The Senate proposal would ensure that over 90 percent of appropriations for public school pay raises go directly to teachers. It is prioritizing those who have the greatest impact on student performance and providing a major incentive for them to stay in the classroom. For example, under this plan, for the first time in state history, our public school teachers will now have an opportunity to make more than administrators. Studies show teachers have the greatest influence on student performance and achievement.

    Also, the Senate's plan would propel North Carolina ahead of Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina teacher salaries. Again, we have now offered the House more than $171 million to be used toward their top priorities of Medicaid and teacher assistants. This is a serious effort to compromise, and we look forward to hearing from our House colleagues.

    Lastly, we all can agree the dialog on how much to increase our teacher salaries is by far a better discourse than what the previous Democrat administration did when they cut our public education by hundreds of millions of dollars. See graphs below.



Contact: Jordan Hennessy
     jordan.hennessy@ncleg.net, •  (252) 619-3606


     300 N. Salisbury Street
     Room 525 • Raleigh, NC 27603

    Phone: (919) 715-8293  •  Fax: (919) 754-3296  •  bill.cook@ncleg.net