The House voted 76 to 43 to override Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the General Assembly budget, giving it the three-fifths majority it needed to pass the budget. The Senate overrode the veto yesterday.
Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, senior chair of the House appropriations committee, spoke briefly about why he thought the House should override the veto.
“The governor talks about education,” he said. “This budget, over the two years of the biennium, has an average 10 percent increase for the teachers of this state.”
Gov. Cooper cited education as a main factor in his decision to veto.
Dollar also mentioned the raises in the budget for principals and assistant principals, millions of dollars to expand access for state students to NC Pre-K, and lottery money going to school building construction in rural, economically disadvantaged areas of the state.
Giving the view of the minority, Democratic leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake, also talked about education, but as part of his rationale for voting against the override. He argued that the Republican teacher pay plan would prevent the state from ever reaching the national average on teacher pay.
“With this budget it appears to be an impossible dream,” he said. “The stuff of fairy tales and bedtime stories.”
He pointed out that the governor had more money in his budget proposal for teacher pay overall and that the raises in the governor’s plan were more uniform. Under the finalized budget, starting teachers get no pay increase and veteran teachers receive a small increase.
