Noelle Talley, Deputy Communications Director for Governor Roy Cooper, shared the following statement on the North Carolina General Assembly's teacher pay proposal:

“Instead of prioritizing tax cuts for corporations and those earning more than $200,000, legislators should give real raises to all teachers. Making education the top priority means more textbooks and classrooms, not more tax cuts for those already at the top.”

Gov. Cooper's budget proposes an average 8% teacher pay raise this year, with every teacher receiving at least a 5% raise.

This includes veteran teachers who are left behind by the legislature’s teacher pay plan. The budget pays for the teacher raise by targeting the scheduled income tax cuts to the middle class, freezing additional tax breaks for income over $200,000 a year and corporations.

The budget puts North Carolina on track to reach the national average in teacher pay in four years and to be a Top Ten Educated State by 2025 by adding 2,000 pre-K slots, proposing $25 million for textbooks and digital learning and providing educators a $150 stipend to cover out-of-pocket classroom supplies.

It authorizes $75 million to start a fix to the class size chaos caused by the General Assembly’s unfunded class size mandates. The budget leaves room for a school construction bond of up to $2 billion that Governor Cooper believes the legislature should ask voters to pass in 2018.

The budget also includes $130 million to hire more student support personnel in schools, like School Resource Officers, nurses and counselors, and to upgrade facilities to be more secure.