North Carolina has funded $958.3 million of the $1.75 billion required by the Leandro Plan for this year and next year, according to Kristen Walker, chief deputy director of the State Budget.
Walker provided a sworn affidavit Monday afternoon on her analysis, which tips in favor of how much Republican General Assembly leadership said had been funded in the new state budget, signed into law by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in November.
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Walker was required to provide the analysis as a part of a Superior Court review of the state budget's impact on an earlier order to spend $1.75 billion this year and next year. The $1.75 billion covers two years of the so-called Leandro Plan, which has been approved in court to remedy the nearly 30-year-old Leandro school funding lawsuit.
Judge Michael Robinson will review Walker's analysis as he determines whether to maintain former Judge W. David Lee's order that funded the Leandro Plan by bypassing the General Assembly.
Robinson could uphold Lee's order or portions of it or eliminate it, leaving the low-wealth school districts that sued the state without an option to enforce the Leandro Plan.
Walker's analysis includes funding not specifically called for in the Leandro plan but which Walker has determined fall within the category of salary increases called for in the Leandro plan.
The new state budget includes $100 million for a salary supplement for teachers in all but five of the state's most populous counties, weighted based on analysis of counties' tax bases.
The Leandro plan calls for a 5% salary increase for teachers and instructional support staff. A portion of that 5% was separately funded in across-the-board raises of 2.6% by the end of next year.
Advocates for the Leandro plan have not always included the $100 million salary supplement in their estimates of how much the plan had funded. Some have place the figure closer to $760 million.
In court last month, attorneys for the state and attorneys for the General Assembly indicated potential disagreement on how much the state budget funded in Leandro, with attorneys for the General Assembly suggesting they believed more had been funded, putting the figure closer to $900 million.
Walker's affidavit also estimates this year's budget does not appropriate nor reserve $2.4 billion in state revenues. But after tax cuts approved in the budget and some increases in spending, Walker estimates only $22 million in state revenues are neither appropriated nor reserved in the fiscal 2023 budget.