During the North Carolina Education Cabinet Meeting Tuesday, Governor Pat McCrory discussed his budget and heard a rosy analysis of the state of the state’s coffers since he entered office.
He mentioned to the Cabinet that he will be unveiling his full budget “hopefully” between now and next week when the General Assembly convenes for the short session. Then he launched into an overview of the education budget plan he released weeks ago.
“You probably didn’t read about it much in the newspaper due to other issues,” he said. “But frankly it shouldn’t have been on 3C. It should have been on the front page.”
He said that specifically in regards to his teacher pay proposal, which amounts to an average 5 percent pay increase for teachers. He broke that down in terms of dollars by saying that every teacher would get about “$2,000 plus” as a result of this raise. He also mentioned the 3.5 percent one-time bonus that would be skewed toward veteran teachers who did not benefit as much from the pay raise passed by the General Assembly last year. Go here to see more about his education proposal.
See the video of the Governor’s remarks below.
McCrory also had State Budget Director Andrew Heath give an overview of the state’s financial solvency. Heath said that the state is looking at a projected $237 million surplus. While that is good news, he added that it won’t solve all of the state’s budget needs.
“A lot of that is one-time money and a lot of the needs that we have in the state are recurring,” he said.
Heath then went on to list all the ways in which the McCrory administration has invested in education. He said that since the governor came into office, the average amount of per-pupil spending has gone up from $5,361 to $5,638. The state’s spending on K-12 education has increased by 12.17 percent, and spending on textbooks has almost tripled from $23 million to $61 million.
See the video of Heath’s presentation below:
