CMS board members challenge NC legislature to ‘do more’, say teacher raises not enough
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education members are calling the North Carolina Senate’s proposed educator raises insufficient.
“What’s happening right now in North Carolina is not just budget mismanagement,” CMS board member Melissa Easley said at a news conference Thursday. “It’s an attack on the very foundation of our public schools.”
The Senate introduced its 2025-27 budget proposal Monday night, and it passed Thursday. It includes an across-the-board raise for state employees of 1.25% in fiscal year 2025-26, along with a $3,000 bonus over two years. Teachers would receive an average 2.3% pay increase next school year and an average total increase of 3.3% over the next two years. They’d also get the $3,000 bonus.
The proposed 2.3% increase for this fiscal year falls short of the expected state increase CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill laid out in her budget proposal for the district, which assumed an increase of 3% from the state.
It’s also a far cry from the budget recommendations Democratic Governor Josh Stein made in March, which included teacher pay raises of an average of 10.6% over two years. However, the governor’s plan would require halting planned tax cuts, while Republicans in the Senate have emphasized cutting taxes for North Carolinians as a top priority.
CMS Board Chair Stephanie Sneed called out the increase as failing to keep up with inflation, which currently sits at 2.4%, down from 2.8% last month, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sneed and Easley both worry the state increase is not enough to keep NC teachers in the profession.
“Would you stay in a job where the pay increases a total of less than 5% over 3 years, while groceries, gas and rent keep rising?” Easley said Thursday. “We are still watching qualified, passionate educators leave this profession because they cannot afford to stay.”
Pay increases for educators will vary based on years of experience. The proposed raises would increase monthly pay for beginning teachers by $50 and the most experienced teachers, with 25 years or more in NC schools, by $70.
Educators’ salaries are based on a 10-month salary schedule, not a 12-month one. The new proposal would bring the yearly salary of a first-year teacher to $41,510, for example.
“Under this proposal, it’s estimated that average teacher pay will be at $62,407,” Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said at a news conference Monday. “On average, teachers will receive an additional compensation, with the step increases and the pay raise and the bonus, of 8.9% over the biennium.”
Easley argues the one-time $3,000 bonus is not enough to keep teachers.
“A one-time bonus is not a sustainable investment,” she said. “What we need now is for the political will to stop treating our teachers like a line item and start treating them like the professionals they are.”
The proposal will now go to the NC House of Representatives, which will write and pass its own version. The House proposed higher raises for educators than the Senate during the last budget cycle in 2023.
Both Sneed and Easley called on the House to increase teacher pay raises in this budget, too.
“We must challenge our state legislators to do more,” Sneed said. “We issue a challenge that money is allocated where the overwhelming majority of students are educated, which is our traditional public schools.”
This story was originally published April 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
