House members roll out competing plan on school construction

House leaders compete with the Speaker Tim Moore's bond plan, backing a proposal more like the Senate's to spend billions on schools.

Posted 5:44 p.m. Mar 19, 2019 — Updated 5:56 p.m. Mar 19, 2019

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — A trio of House members who voted last week for a school bond plan backed by Speaker Tim Moore announced a competing proposal Tuesday to avoid borrowing money for school construction and rely instead on the regular state budget, much like Senate Republicans have proposed.

Sponsors said the plan would raise some $6.5 billion over 10 years, split between K-12 schools, community colleges, state agencies, universities and a rural broadband initiative.

“We do not have to mortgage our children’s future while building them the schools they need today,” Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union, said in a news release announcing the plan.

Two of the sponsors, Arp and Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, are House budget chairs, complicating what was already a multi-front contest between the House, the Senate and Gov. Roy Cooper over school construction funding.

Arp and Saine both pushed back Tuesday against the idea that they were undercutting Moore's bond package by rolling out a competing plan.

"Simply having an alternative proposal and idea does not indicate opposition," Saine said in a text. "I like tomato sandwiches, and I like chicken-and-tomato sandwiches."

Arp said he thinks the new bill is "a better plan, but certainly this is not the only plan."

"The good thing is that we're talking school construction monies," he said.

Studies have consistently shown a need for more school construction funding, which is traditionally provided in North Carolina by local governments, while the state pays the lion's share of operating costs. Now, the governor, House leadership and Senate leadership are all backing an infusion of billions – it's just the method and numbers that differ.

The main criticism of borrowing? Interest payments. The biggest arguments against going through the regular budget? The funding is less certain because the legislature can always change future budgets and, without a tax increase, there would be less money left in the budget to spend on other things.

Like the Senate, Arp, Saine and Rep. Debra Conrad, R-Forsyth, want to provide funding through the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund, which was created in 2017 and would earmark a percentage of the state budget each year to finance construction projects. The new House plan, laid out in House Bill 381, would split the money over 10 years like this:

$2.1 billion for K-12 schools
$300 million for community colleges
$4 billion for state agencies and universities
$150 million for rural broadband

The plan backed by Senate Republicans would split about $6.09 billion over nine years into equal thirds for K-12 schools, state agency construction needs and the state universities and community colleges.

Cooper's proposal would borrow $3.9 billion, putting $2 billion of that toward K-12 schools, $500 million to community colleges, $500 million to the university system, $800 million for local water and sewer projects and $100 million for the North Carolina Museum of History and the North Carolina Zoo.

Arp's office estimated the interest owed on Cooper's plan at $2.4 billion.

Moore, R-Cleveland, wants to borrow $1.9 billion: $1.5 billion for public schools and the rest split between the university system and community colleges. That plan passed the House last week, 105-6. The interest owed on his plan would be more in the neighborhood of $1 billion, according to legislative analysis.

Both Moore's plan, and the governor's, would require voter approval to borrow the money in a statewide referendum.

Moore spokesman Joseph Kyzer said in an email Tuesday that the speaker "encourages all House members to propose policy solutions they think are the best approach for North Carolina" and that he "appreciates their overwhelming bipartisan support for the education bond he sponsored this session.”

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