By Paul Fulton and David Rice
Public Ed Works
RALEIGH (July 31, 2025) – North Carolina has a problem. And state legislators – particularly the state Senate led by Phil Berger – have refused to recognize it for far too long.
The state ranks 43rd in average teacher pay and 39th in starting teacher pay.1 That’s an embarrassment to the state ranked No. 1 for business for three of the past four years.2
Those rankings can’t coexist for long.
North Carolina is on a tear in economic development, attracting new employers like Amazon, Toyota, Boom SuperSonic and JetZero. These companies are coming here for a trained workforce that starts with Pre-K and extends through K-12, our community colleges and our universities.
Yet North Carolina pays its teachers less than all its neighboring states.3
In 2023 alone, more than 10,000 teachers (11.5% of the state’s teaching workforce) left North Carolina’s classrooms.4 Nearly 9,000 (9.9%) left in 2024. And the state increasingly relies on uncertified teachers to fill its classrooms.5
THIS ISN’T HARD to figure out, unless you want to deny the facts and undermine the public schools that the vast majority of our students attend.
North Carolina is one of very few states that haven’t yet adopted a budget for 2025-26. It points to a lack of legislative self-discipline and an unwillingness to compromise to get things done for the good of our state.
But the budget approved by the state House is clearly better than that of the state Senate:
•Public school teachers would see an average raise of 8.7% over two years.
•Base pay for starting teachers would increase to $50,000 by 2026-27 – $56,593 including local supplements.
•And the House budget would restore extra pay for teachers with master’s degrees in the fields they teach.
•The state Senate’s proposal, conversely, would give teachers a pitiful 3.3% raise plus a $3,000 bonus over two years.6
THE DIFFERENCE? TAXES.
Despite all the economic uncertainties facing the state – and economists’ consensus projection that the state could face a revenue shortfall of more than $1 billion in 2026-277 – the Senate wants to cling to a previous plan to reduce income-tax rates.
The House wants not to stop the tax cuts or raise taxes, but to slow the rate of the cuts to award larger, long-overdue raises to teachers and state employees.
House Republicans’ proposal was so well-received that it won support from 27 House Democrats, including the minority leader, and praise from the state’s Democratic governor.8
A month into the fiscal year, the two chambers appear to have come to a consensus this week on a few basics – $1 billion in step pay increases for teachers and enrollment growth funds for K-12 and community colleges.9
But the big budget issues – tax cuts, raises for teachers and state employees, and funds for a multi-billion-dollar children’s hospital to be run by UNC Health and Duke Health – remain unresolved.
“If we get through those specifically, especially the taxes, I think things will go pretty quick,” Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth and Senior Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told The News & Observer.
If House and Senate negotiators can’t reach a full budget agreement by the time legislators return to Raleigh in late August, he said, they might pass yet another ‘“mini-budget.”10
THE UNCERTAINTIES only multiplied this month with Congress’ passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) and shoved billions of dollars in responsibilities for those programs down to the states.11
The Medicaid cuts, in particular, could jeopardize North Carolina’s long-delayed expansion of Medicaid two years ago to provide health insurance for more than 650,000 of its working poor.
That consequence prompted Republican U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis to vote against the bill and cancel his plans to run for re-election.12
Lambeth said legislators will need to return to Raleigh yet again to discuss how to adapt to the federal cuts.13
The added uncertainties and responsibilities only underscore the need to be cautious with tax cuts to ensure the state has the funds to educate our state’s most precious resource – our children.
The state House gets that. The Senate doesn’t.
Where do you stand as these critical decisions loom? If you’d like to let your legislators know, you can look them up here.
1 https://publicedworks.org/2025/05/nc-teacher-pay-now-ranks-43rd/; https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2025-04/2025_rankings_and_estimates_report.pdf.
2 https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/10/north-carolina-top-state-for-business-america.html.
3 https://publicedworks.org/2025/05/nc-teacher-pay-now-ranks-43rd/.
5 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article303312256.html.
6 https://publicedworks.org/2025/05/house-budget-shows-promise-for-teacher-pay/.
7 https://www.osbm.nc.gov/revised-consensus-revenue-forecast-may-2025/open; https://publicedworks.org/2025/06/house-budget-takes-more-cautious-approach-on-taxes/.
9 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article311510190.html.
10 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article311503921.html.
11 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article311087615.html.
12 https://www.wunc.org/politics/2025-06-30/senate-megabill-nc-medicaid-expansion-tillis.
13 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article311503921.html.
Chris says
Once again, NC children are the ones who suffer because of inaction from our legislators/Senators. Enough is enough. This election cycle vote all sitting members out of office regardless of party affiliation.