Republican lawmakers shouldn’t spend another dime on vouchers for students to attend private schools, Gov. Roy Cooper and several Democratic lawmakers said Thursday.

They should instead spend hundreds of millions in surplus dollars on raising teacher pay, Cooper said during a news conference in Raleigh.

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The House and Senate — led by Republicans — are scheduled to return to Raleigh next week. While no agenda is set, Cooper said he believes Republicans plan to expand the state's Opportunity Scholarship program.

Opportunity Scholarships are checks of up to about $7,500 that any family in the state can get to send their child to a private school. Voucher amounts are less for higher-income families.

Vouchers work by essentially repurposing what the state spends on each public school student in the form of a voucher to send them to private school. Opponents argue schools have fixed costs and the loss of funding to public schools can complicate operations. Public schools lose money if one of their students opt for a private school instead.

Republican lawmakers proposed a more than $460 million increase to funding for Opportunity Scholarships this spring, but failed to enact that proposal into law. The fact that Republicans are scheduled to return to Raleigh in the middle of campaign season could be a sign they've reached a deal on the voucher expansion, Democrats said.

The legislative schedule was set in late June as part of an agreement to adjourn. Representatives for House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger didn't respond to requests for comment about next week’s schedule or Cooper’s comments on vouchers. Any voucher bill passed by Republicans faces a near-certain veto from Cooper. The GOP holds veto-proof majorities in both chambers, but do not have another session scheduled until Oct. 9 and then on Nov. 19, after the general election

Cooper and other Democrats argued that spending millions of dollars on families in the urban and suburban counties where private schools are concentrated means there’s not enough money left over for teacher raises across the state or to provide rural schools with more opportunities.

“Meanwhile, our public schools are struggling to hire teachers, bus drivers and other critical staff,” Cooper said.

Democrats said public school funding should be an investment in a greater good and not based on use. They likened it to police or fire services. People depend on the quality of education their fellow residents receive, said House Democratic Leader Robert Reives.

“We’re a society,” he said. “That is the cost of living in a civilization.”

The Opportunity Scholarship program serves more than 45,000 students, most of them lower-income. More than 50,000 students have applied for but did not receive an Opportunity Scholarship for this year — a problem that resulted after lawmakers in 2023 voted to remove the income cap on eligible families and extend eligibility to students who already attend a private school. That pushed the costs of vouchers for all of the new applicants up by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Clearing the wait list could put the Opportunity Scholarship program cost at $625 million this year, Democrats said. Some on the wait list could be existing private school students.

Republicans argue the wait list is evidence of desire among families for different choices.

“Roy Cooper’s sad assault on school choice continues with his latest comments,” North Carolina GOP spokesman Matt Mercer told WRAL News in a statement. “It’s clear that Republicans are the party of quality education for ALL students in our state.”

Democratic lawmakers said private schools aren’t held accountable for their academics, unlike public schools, and argued the money for the vouchers lacks any of the same oversight as money for public schools.

House and Senate leaders both said this spring that they wanted to cover the voucher wait list, but they couldn’t reach a compromise on how to do so. Republican leaders also failed to reach an agreement on additional funding for public school teacher raises.

That stalemate came after the state’s expected budget surplus came in about $400 million lower than initially projected.

WRAL News state government reporters Paul Specht and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.