RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Senate Republicans would offer North Carolina public school teachers one-time bonuses above and beyond their usual experience-based raises in legislation advancing through the chamber.
The bill, which cleared another Senate committee on Thursday and is expected on the floor early next week, would provide $350 bonuses to teachers and instructional support personnel.
The bill also encourages Gov. Roy Cooper to use federal COVID-19 relief funds earmarked for education to give additional $600 bonuses to these educators and other noninstructional school workers, WRAL-TV reported. Cooper’s office said he’s not allowed to use the money that way, citing federal guidance. That guidance could change, however.
A bonus-only proposal beyond the usual experience-based raises reflects the dramatic fiscal changes in North Carolina state government compared to the year before, when GOP leaders and Cooper fought over the level of permanent raises for educators.
With the state now projected to received $4 billion less in revenues by June 2021 due to the COVID-19 economic downturn, Repubilcans says they’re doing all they can to rebalance the state’s budgets.
“We’re working in tough circumstances,” Sen. Harry Brown, a top budget-writer in the chamber, said Thursday.
The North Carolina Association of Educators opposes the bill, pointing out that rank-and-file state employees are already on schedule to get another 2.5% increase next year.
“Educators have been on the front lines of this pandemic from the beginning, making the meals, adapting the curriculum, serving the food and checking in on their students’ emotional and physical well-being,” association President Mark Jewell said in a release.
Public school teachers received no raise this past school year save for the experienced-based increases. Additional raises got caught up in a political fight between Cooper and legislative Republicans over a two-year budget that Cooper vetoed in part because he said teachers weren’t being paid enough.
That budget never became law. Republicans made a series of offers to Cooper and Democrats that would have given teachers raises of between roughly 4% and 5% over two years. Cooper and Republicans later agreed on a standalone bill to raise state employee pay.
The standalone educator-pay bill in the Senate is the latest in a number of targeted spending measures that GOP lawmakers seek to pass before their annual session ends in the coming weeks. Republicans decided against passing an omnibus budget bill for the coming year and focused instead on what they consider must-do initiatives for state government.
Several such measures received final legislative approval on Thursday, including those that cover expenses for public school enrollment growth this fall; the hiring of new state parks employees; and the costs of offering reduced tuition at Western Carolina University, Elizabeth City State University and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. The measures now go to Cooper’s desk.
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