Republicans pitch new teacher raises, but with a catch in budget fight

Their new bill would give teachers a 3.9 percent raise, on average, over the next two years. That's the same amount they were due under the Republican budget that passed earlier this year, and which Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed while calling for higher salaries.

But GOP leaders also said that, if Democrats join them in overriding Cooper's veto, additional supplements kick in, taking teachers up to a 4.4 percent increase.

On an average teacher salary of about $53,900, that works out to $270, funded in the budget's second year.

In a joint statement from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, Republicans cast the issue as an all-or-nothing choice months into this budgetary standoff.

"There's still time for Senate Democrats to come back to us with what more they need to override the veto," Berger, R-Rockingham, said in the statement. "This bill can change in five minutes. Otherwise, this is it. If the governor vetoes this bill, teachers and support staff are the only ones in the state who will get nothing."

The Cooper administration's response was swift.

"Is this a joke?" spokesman Ford Porter said in an email. "Republican leaders want sweeping corporate tax cuts and their entire bad budget in exchange for paltry teacher raises that are less than those for other state employees."

The North Carolina Association of Educators called the proposal "wildly insulting to educators of every level."

NCAE President Mark Jewell said the group would "stand with the Governor now in mutual disgust over this bill" and that the move showed how desperate Republican leaders are to pass the tax cuts baked into their version of the state budget.

GOP leaders moved Wednesday night to pass those cuts in separate bills, but those bills are also subject to a potential Cooper veto.

The new teacher bill, which will come to the House floor Thursday, will also include 2 percent raises over the two-year budget period for non-instructional support staff. f Democrats help override the budget veto, that raise becomes 4 percent, plus a 0.5 percent bonus, leadership said.

If the override goes through, University of North Carolina system and community college employees also would get an average raise of 4 percent, higher than the figures laid out in House Bill 231, which is the default raise bill that cleared the House Wednesday afternoon. Democrats voted against that bill.

House Democrats also voted Wednesday, for the most part, against House Bill 377, which would fund teacher step increases.

These annual increases, which teachers get as they move up the experience ladder, are already baked into the 3.9 percent and 4.4 percent figures Republican leaders put out Tuesday night. Moore and Berger said in their release that, if Cooper signs the new teacher raise bill and the step increase bill, every teacher gets a raise.

"If Governor Cooper vetoes the bills, then teachers will receive no raise," they said in the release.

House Minority Leader Darren Jackson asked Democrats to vote against the step increase Wednesday. With the Senate hoping to wrap up most of this legislative session's business by Thursday night, Jackson said Democrats must force the step increases and raises together.

Otherwise, teachers may end up with the step increase and nothing else when the Senate goes home, he said.

Jackson, D-Wake, also told his colleagues to vote against the UNC/community college raise bill, at least in part because it includes 0.5 percent annual bonuses for state retirees, which is less than Democrats are pushing for.

Cooper and his fellow Democrats have used the budget veto as leverage, not only for higher teacher raises, but to stop GOP plans for business tax cuts and to force the Republican leadership to expand Medicaid, which would extend taxpayer-funded health insurance to hundreds of thousands of North Carolina's working poor.

There was no indication Wednesday night that the Republicans' latest gambit would break the state's budgetary logjam.