At the board of education meeting for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools on July 18, the board heard an update on the state budget’s status: no change.

Despite the new fiscal year for North Carolina beginning on July 1, no progress has been made since Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the proposed budget, which did not include Medicaid expansion, a major priority for Cooper, and GOP legislators refused to budge.

CHCCS assistant superintendent for business and finance Jennifer Bennett shared what this lack of a budget means for the school district as officials prepare for the upcoming school year. Schools have permission to use the same recurring funds from the previous year’s budget until a new one is passed. Bennett said, though, it still prevents an important action.

“We do not have authority to institute any pay raises,” she said, “even if it’s an experienced step on last year’s scale. Everybody needs to understand that.”

In the 2018-2019 state budget, it mandated public school teachers receive gradual increases in pay until their fifteenth year of service, with a $200 increase given to teachers in their twenty-fifth year. Improving these pay raises is a topic of conversation for a new budget, but until it’s passed, schools are not even allowed to implement the raises from the previous budget.

North Carolina is attempting to provide more funding to public schools in order to recruit and retain more teachers. While the average teacher salary in the U.S. is more than $60,000 per year, North Carolina’s average is less than $54,000. In the proposed budget, the state Republican leaders mapped out an increase to $55,600 per year. Governor Cooper continues to urge for a $4,000 increase.

Bennett said the state had passed legislation about new pay raises she viewed as controversial. She reported there is a noticeable difference between what state employees and Local Education Agencies employees, which are public-school board and administrative agency members, would receive.

“The state passed raises for classified employees at state employees at 2.5 percent plus five days bonus leave. For LEA classified employees, the raise is only 1 percent.”

Bennett said she plans to present some recommendations how to work with those pay raise scales, along with an initial budget for the school district, in August.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools begin the new school year August 27.

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