NCATA Legislative Update! June 14, 2019

Legislative Update from Bryan Holloway: June 3, 2019

The North Carolina Senate approved their budget proposal on Friday, May 31st. The Senate proposal was significantly different from the NC House proposal, which focused heavily on teacher pay raises and a modified principal pay plan. The Senate budget has less money for teacher pay and does not include the House version of Principal and Assistant Principal pay proposals. Instead, the Senate budget allocates more money to state employees (average 5 percent raise over the next 2 years). Details are below. At this point, House and Senate leaders will confer and work to reach a compromise budget to send to the Governor. NCATA will continue to track the progress of the Budget Conference Committee over the coming weeks.

Highlights from the Senate Budget

Teachers
The Senate budget allocated monies to support an average 3.5 percent raise for teachers to be paid through 2020-2021. Also included is a onetime bonus of $500 dollars for teachers with 15-24 years of service and $1000 for teachers with 25 years or more of experience. This proposal does not benefit veteran teachers like the House proposal did (see link below to see the comparisons between budget plans).

Click  here for budget comparisons

School Psychologists
The Senate Budget includes $35.4 million of recurring dollars to hire 100 new school psychologists (1 for each district).

Principal and Assistant Principal pay
Under the Senate Budget, through 2020-2021, principals would receive an average of 6.2 percent increase in their salaries, and assistant principals would see an increase of 6.3 percent. This is similar to what the House Budget allocates, but it does not include the structural changes proposed by the House and generally supported by school administrators. Other than making pay tier adjustments for principals in the smallest and largest schools, the Senate budget plan makes relatively few changes to the existing pay structure for site-based school administrators.

Bonus Leave
The Senate Budget proposal does not address adding additional leave.

Retirees
The Senate Budget proposal does not include a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA).

Full Senate Budget Report (see link below)

https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2019/h966