State due in court to respond to $1.7B education funding proposal

In September, attorneys for the state asked Lee to give lawmakers more time to come up with a budget, though neither Legislative chamber has proposed a budget that would fund the entirety of the $1.7 billion required.

Posted 11:00 a.m. Nov 7, 2021 — Updated 10:35 a.m. Nov 8, 2021

Emily Walkenhorst

, WRAL education reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — State officials will have their chance this week to weigh in on a proposal to compel state finance executives to transfer $1.7 billion toward funding schools.

The state officials — typically the State Board of Education the Department of Public Instruction — must submit a written response in Wake County Superior Court by the end of Monday. A court hearing Wednesday will address both the proposal and response.

In September, attorneys for the state asked Judge David Lee to give lawmakers more time to come up with a budget, though neither Legislative chamber has proposed a budget that would fund the entirety of the $1.7 billion required in a court-ordered plan for this year and next year (considered the second and third year of the plan).

The filings and the hearing are part of the 27-year-old “Leandro” education funding lawsuit, which has resulted in courts ordering the state to more robustly and equitably fund schools.

The proposal to transfer $1.7 billion toward funding schools comes from all plaintiffs and plaintiff intervenors. That includes school boards in and students enrolled in the low-wealth Cumberland, Halifax, Hoke, Robeson and Vance county school districts (who originally sued), families in Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools known as the “Penn Intervenors,” and Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools is also a "realigned defendant" in the case because the Penn Intervenors had alleged the district had also fallen short of its education obligations.

Years of courts ordering changes

Some changes to school funding formulas, including new categories of funding for lower-wealth schools and economically disadvantaged students, have been made since the lawsuit was filed in 1994. But court orders since those changes have been made did not find that they ere sufficient, including one written by the original judge in the case, Howard Manning, in 2015.

In that order, Manning wrote, “in way too many school districts across the state, thousands of children in the public schools have failed to obtain and are not now obtaining a sound basic education as defined and required by the Leandro decision.”

But no comprehensive plan for complying with the state’s shortcomings as identified by courts was presented to court until this year. Judge W. David Lee approved that plan — submitted jointly by the plaintiffs and defendants — in June. It hasn’t been funded, prompting Lee to ask for suggestions on how to get it funded.

The plan’s main goals are to ensure high quality teachers are in every classroom, high quality principals are in every school and more North Carolina children have access to pre-kindergarten. Within the plan are numerous suggestions for adding or changing laws and policies, such as removing the cap on funding to educate children with disabilities.

By law, the state is supposed to fund education, while counties fund facilities. But many counties are using local funds to pay for education funds they say they need from the state but aren’t getting.

State lawmakers have proposed funding only some of the funds required for this year and next year, as required by the plan. Republican leadership have argued the courts can’t set the budget and aren’t sold that the plan would close achievement gaps among students and schools. Proponents of the plan have called those gaps “opportunity gaps,” stemming from disparate resources.

The proposed order

On Nov. 1, plaintiffs and intervenors in the case — families and school boards in six North Carolina counties — submitted a proposed order for Lee to issue. It would compel the Office of State Budget and Management, the current State Budget Director, the Office of the State Controller, the current State Comptroller, the Office of the State Treasurer and the current State Treasurer to transfer $1.7 billion out of unappropriated general revenue and into the pockets of three state entities.

The state would have 30 days to make this happen, the proposal reads.

That money includes $1.5 billion to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, $189.8 million to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and $41.3 million to the University of North Carolina System.

Why plaintiffs think their proposal is legally sound

The Penn Intervenors, who submitted a brief alongside the groups’ proposed order, argued Lee has the authority to do that as a judge. They cited the state Constitution’s declaration that “every person for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law; and right and justice shall be administered without favor, denial, or delay.”

They additionally cite a 1940 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling, in State v. Harris, that said courts’ authority to reign in a Legislature that has ‘inadvertently’ exceeded its limitations is just as necessary as the Legislatures’ own adherence to the Constitution.

The Penn Intervenors note the state has been found at fault for not complying with the Constitution already. The Legislature is “thumbing its nose at the courts and suggesting that the only way that this Court can change the outcome is to run for office, join the General Assembly, and vote for appropriations,” they wrote. That notion disregards the state Constitution and in effect “denies North Carolina school children the ‘remedy by due course of law.’”

They continued, “Undoubtedly, such precedent would set in force a series of actions by the General Assembly to hide behind the cover of a single clause in the constitution.”

The North Carolina Supreme Court has on multiple occasions held county board’s financially liable in local education disputes, the Penn Intervenors wrote.

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