NC Gov. Cooper asks for 8.5% raises and bonuses for teachers, and Republicans respond

North Carolina state lawmakers returned to Raleigh on Wednesday for the start of the General Assembly’s short session. The Republican-controlled legislature’s goals include passing a budget adjustment bill.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper told reporters what he wants in that budget an hour before the House and Senate briefly met. He called for an 8.5% teacher pay raise this year and a $1,500 retention bonus, with 5% raises for state employees plus bonuses of $1,000 to $1,500. Cooper also wants to restore master’s degree pay for teachers.

The legislature is working with a $1.4 billion revenue surplus this year as it makes adjustments to the state’s $30 billion spending plan.

Republican leaders told reporters Wednesday, without having yet seen Cooper’s proposal, that they would be open to some compromises.

“There may be some things there that we can work with. There are probably a lot of things that we won’t be able to work with,” Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said.

“We are going to, I anticipate, work on budget adjustments that will keep us within a growth factor that recognizes population growth and inflation. In order to do that, I don’t know that we can go as far as what the governor is talking about — whether we’ll do any of those things,” Berger said.

Republicans have already said they want to increase the pay for state employees and teachers as well as adding more funding for private school tuition vouchers with taxpayer money.

Berger said he supports fully funding the Opportunity Scholarship Program with more than $100 million.

Cooper opposes the private school scholarships and wants a moratorium.

“They can choose desperately needed investments to educate our children and our workforce, along with tax cuts for the middle class and small businesses. Or they can choose tax giveaways for corporations and the wealthy and keep robbing taxpayer money from public schools to fund private school vouchers,” Cooper said in a news conference at the Albemarle Building in downtown Raleigh.

Cooper said that lawmakers have a choice, calling the funding a matter of priorities.

“Right now, Republican legislative leaders are promising to give away hundreds of millions more just to make sure that the wealthier North Carolinians can pick up their government checks for children that they already have in private school,” he said.

He called past teacher pay raises “mediocre.” Cooper’s budget proposal also requests funding for more teacher assistants and an expansion of teaching fellow scholarships “to encourage more young people to become teachers.”

State employee raises

State Budget Director Kristin Walker said the proposal, which was not revealed to reporters during Cooper’s remarks, will not raise taxes. It requests the corporate income tax rate remain at 2.5%.

Cooper’s $34.5 billion proposal asks for at least a 5% raise for state employees. Walker said the vacancy rate as of December was 23%. The turnover rate is nearly 33% for first-year state employees. She said $600 million in the proposal would fund the raises as well as retention bonuses of $1,000 to $1,500, with the lower amount for employees earning salaries less than $75,000 and the higher amount for those who make more than $75,000.

The proposal also requests a 3% one-time bonus for retired state employees as a cost-of-living adjustment.

State employees are already slated to get 3% raise during the 2024-2025 fiscal year if there are no additional raises in the new budget. Teacher raises passed in the 2023 budget would mean they get the rest of an average of 7% raise over two years.

Chance of bonuses

Berger said he’s open to raises for state employees and teachers this year — with a caveat.

“If, within the context of the other things that we we intend to do, and within the context of trying to keep our spend number with the population growth and inflation — I’m not opposed to us looking at salaries for teachers and state employees,” he said.

Berger said Republican leaders do not want to spend the revenue surplus on recurring raises, but are open to using the surplus to increase pay with a one-time bonus.

Similarly, budget writer Rep. Jason Saine of Lincolnton said he’s “not opposed to bonuses. We’ve been supportive of bonuses in the past.”

Saine said House Republicans were meeting Wednesday to talk about their priorities for the session and budget. He said even though Republicans have the supermajority, they’ll consider Cooper’s pitch.

“We all are very concerned about public education. We want to make sure that we’ve got a good workforce, that folks are well-educated,” Saine said.

Bond on the ballot, other requests

Cooper is also proposing a $2.5 billion bond referendum on ballots this fall for public education. All 115 of North Carolina’s school districts would be eligible for funds, Walker said, which would be enough to pay for about 90 new elementary schools and middle schools.

Berger doesn’t see any support for a school construction bond or any bond among Republicans, he said Wednesday.

“I think we’ve indicated that our priority is to get the state out of the borrowing-money business,” Berger said.

State budget schedule

Saine said the House budget chairs will “certainly work hard to try to get something that everyone can agree on,” noting the two-year budget is already in place.

Berger said he’d like to see the budget voted on in early June, “so we can stay on target and be finished (with the session) by the end of June.”

North Carolina law doesn’t require the General Assembly to pass a budget by June 30 or adjourn by that date.