Leandro case judge says NC schools are due $785M but nixes funds transfer to pay for it

Judge Michael Robinson's order issued Tuesday says the state must fund the remainder of the plan, though it doesn't say how.

Posted 9:56 p.m. Apr 26, 2022 — Updated 12:22 a.m. Apr 28, 2022

Emily Walkenhorst

, WRAL education reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina still owes its public schools $785.1 million this year and next year toward new education spending, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Judge Michael Robinson said the state is underfunding the plan to resolve the Leandro education lawsuit. He found the new state budget funded just less than $1 billion of the plan for this year and next year.

Robinson, in his order issued Tuesday, said the state must fund the remainder of the plan, though he doesn't say how.

At the same time that he said the funding was still due to state agencies, Robinson also removed an earlier order requiring a budget transfer for funding. That transfer bypassed the General Assembly and presumed the state Constitution’s guarantee of a free public education was equivalent to a budget appropriation — something the state Supreme Court now plans to weigh in on.

How that is resolved will determine whether the state’s 1.5 million public schoolchildren will see the Leandro lawsuit’s plan carried out any time soon.

“To the extent any other actions are necessary to effectuate the year 2 and 3 programs in the Comprehensive Remedial Plan, any and all other State actors and their officers, agents, servants, and employees are authorized and directed to do what is necessary to fully effect years 2 and 3 of the Comprehensive Remedial Plan,” Robinson wrote.

The North Carolina Supreme Court asked Robinson to amend previous Judge W. David Lee’s order to transfer $1.75 billion toward education, accounting for any changes the passage of a new state budget might require.

Robinson altered the amounts in the new order, while also removing the requirement for three state finance executives to transfer the funds to three state agencies. Robinson cited a Court of Appeals panel’s ruling in late November that stopped Lee’s order from applying to State Controller Linda Combs, who had petitioned to stop it.

Combs was concerned the order would cause her to violate state laws that say the General Assembly is responsible for appropriating funds. At the same time, she was concerned not following the order would present other legal challenges for her.

Robinson said he is bound by the Court of Appeals panel’s ruling and decided to amend Lee’s order to reflect that the Court of Appeals has struck it down.

But Lee’s order should be changed to reflect the state “has failed to comply with the trial court’s prior order to fully fund years 2 and 3 of the CRP,” Robinson wrote.

Republican General Assembly leadership has now intervened in the case and has opposed the court-approved Leandro Plan entirely. They asked Robinson to strike down Lee’s order and decide each state budget needs to be examined for whether it adequately provides a sound, basic education to the state’s schoolchildren.

The low-wealth school boards and families who sued in Leandro, as well as the state representatives in the case, had argued for Robinson to maintain Lee’s order and update it only to reflect the new state budget funding part of the plan. All of those groups had agreed upon the plan before it was approved in court in June 2021.

Now that Robinson has ruled, the state Supreme Court can schedule arguments its already agreed to hear on whether Lee’s order to transfer funds was constitutional. The Supreme Court is considering an appeal of the writ of prohibition issued by the Court of Appeals panel, rather than a direct appeal of Lee’s order.

Robinson, a Republican, replaced Lee, a Democrat, as judge in the long-standing Leandro lawsuit in March. Robinson was appointed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican who oversees the Democratic-majority court.

In the Leandro case, courts have found the state is not adequately providing a sound, basic education to the state’s students.

Trial proceedings were concentrated on Hoke County but a remedy has been sought statewide for years and both Lee and former Judge Howard Manning asked parties to come up with a plan to provide a sound basic education.

The plan that resulted, known as the Leandro comprehensive remedial plan, calls for more than $5.6 billion in new education spending by 2028, as well as numerous policy changes. For this year and next year, it calls for $1.75 billion for things like higher employee pay and more funding for students with disabilities.

Here’s a simplified breakdown on what was funded and what wasn’t in the plan under the new state budget, according to the State Office of Budget Management, and which Robinson has mostly not altered:

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