Prior NC teacher and employee raises ranged from 0% to 10%. What will 2021 budget offer?
For tens of thousands of teachers and other state employees, there is just one question about the state budget: How much are the raises?
Raises over the past four decades have ranged from zero to 10%, with most falling in the 5% area.
Looking at data from past General Assembly budgets give some clues as to where that amount might land in the 2021 state budget.
The Republican-led Senate budget bill passed in late June would give all state employees, including teachers, the same raise of 3% over two years, which means 1.5% each of the next two years. For teachers, that includes step-increases, so not everyone would get that much.
That’s way below what Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has proposed. And it’s likely lower than what the final state budget will be. However, both the Senate budget and Cooper’s proposal also include bonuses, which is one-time money to government employees.
Next up in July is the House budget and what that chamber wants for raises. Then both chambers will come to an agreement before sending a final budget bill to Cooper’s desk.
The final amount of raises will likely lie somewhere in between what the Senate wants, the House wants and the governor wants. Like the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” story, the raises are the porridge. What will be just right?
What happened in prior years?
Let’s look at the numbers.
Before Republicans took control of the legislature in 2011, the largest raises for state employees and teachers in the 2000s came in 2006, when there were 5.5% across-the-board raises for state employees and an average of 8.23% raises for teachers, according to a Legislative Fiscal Research Division document. From 2001 to 2005, teacher and state employee raises were lower than 3%.
In 2012, there was an across the board 1.2% raise for state employees including teachers. In 2014, state employees received $1,000, and an average of 7% for teachers.
In the years since, there have been a mix of raises and bonuses, topping out at 2.5% each year for most state employees in 2019 and 2020 and totaling 5% over the two years. That came via a piecemeal budget bill.
Cooper signed those recent raises into law, but criticized the lack of teacher raises. Teacher step increases were funded in a separate bill.
This year’s debate over raises is tied to the 2019 debate over raises, too.
Partisan, chamber divide on raises
Giving raises to teachers and other state employees in this year’s budget isn’t controversial. But exactly how much is a factor that can be largely partisan, or chamber vs. chamber.
Both the House and Senate are controlled by a Republican majority, which means that party writes the budget bills. Cooper, a Democrat, can veto the budget, as he did in 2019, which led to a drawn-out process and no new budget. Republicans do not have the supermajorities required to override vetoes without some help from Democrats.
However, the Senate passed its budget earlier this summer with a veto-proof majority, meaning four Democrats voted with Republicans. But those Democrats might not vote aye when the final version of the budget comes around, or an override vote if Cooper vetoes it again.
This year, the state has $6.5 billion more in projected tax collections it could spend. Republicans want to put much of the sunny economic forecast toward income tax cuts for individuals and corporations.
Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, doesn’t want to spend more money just because they have it. Before the Senate passed its budget proposal, Berger said in a floor speech that they can’t just “write the check” without looking at future spending.
During the same debate, Sen. Michael Garrett, a Guilford County Democrat, said the raises were too low for civil servants and pushed for the 10% teacher raises in Cooper’s proposal.
‘Several attempts to provide larger raises’
The House budget is expected to be revealed, and maybe even passed, before the end of July.
Rep. Jason Saine told The News & Observer before the legislature’s Fourth of July break that the House is usually higher when it comes to proposed state employee and teacher raises. That could also mean giving cost of living adjustment raises to state employee retirees, something else that is not in the Senate budget.
Cooper wants to give teachers 10% raises and other state employees 5% to 7.5% raises in his budget proposal for the next two years.
North Carolina Association of Educators President Tamika Walker Kelly supports Cooper’s proposal for educator raises. She told The N&O when Cooper released his proposal in March that the raises were “affordable, strategic, and well-deserved. We hope the General Assembly will show the same appreciation.”
Berger defended the Senate’s budget giving an average of 3% raises across the board over the next two years, blaming Democrats for rejecting previous higher raise proposals.
“We quite frankly over the past two years, we made several attempts to provide larger raises. Those attempts were voted against by many of the Democrats. Certainly the Democrats voted against those raises when the governor vetoed those raises,” Berger told reporters in June.
In January 2020, a bill to give teachers raises of about 3.9% was vetoed by Cooper, and a Senate vote to override it failed. The failure came during a one-day session before the legislature adjourned for the spring. When they returned in late April 2020, the coronavirus pandemic had arrived in North Carolina.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 11:58 AM with the headline "Prior NC teacher and employee raises ranged from 0% to 10%. What will 2021 budget offer?."
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