How Did Gov. Cooper’s 2019 Veto of HB 966 Impact Base Teacher Pay?

Background

Republicans lost their veto-proof majorities in the General Assembly in 2018. As a result, a gubernatorial veto had consequences. The Cooper administration sought to leverage its newfound power to try to strongarm Republicans into expanding Medicaid and raising public school employee pay significantly.

In 2019, Gov. Cooper proposed a budget that included Medicaid expansion and an imprudent 9.1% increase in teacher salaries through 2021. The General Assembly approved House Bill 966: 2019 Appropriations Act, a biennial budget that did not include Medicaid expansion and would have granted teachers a 3.9% raise. Cooper vetoed their proposed budget and demanded that lawmakers pass a budget that included a minimum 8.5% teacher pay raise.

Later that year, Republicans passed Senate Bill 354: Strengthening Educators’ Pay Act, which included a 3.9% teacher pay raise. The bill also included a provision that would have granted teachers a 4.4% increase if both Senate Bill 354 and House Bill 966 became law. Predictably, Cooper vetoed the Strengthening Educators’ Pay Act.

After the House successfully overrode Cooper’s veto of the 2019 Appropriations Act, Senate Republicans offered to boost the raise to a 4.9% plus a $1,000 bonus if Senate Democrats agreed to a veto override. Cooper and legislative Democrats refused.  A last-ditch veto override of Senate Bill 354 failed, and the General Assembly deferred consideration of teacher pay legislation to the subsequent legislative session. Lawmakers formulated a cautious plan in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite Democratic impediments to approving a teacher salary increase in 2019, teachers received experience-based or “step” increases over the last two years. Step advancements awarded by the General Assembly represented an average increase of 1.2% each year.

Analysis

This analysis considers the effect on base teacher salaries over two years if House Bill 966 became law and lawmakers retained the budgeted salary schedule in the second year of the biennium. Thus, the percentage and dollar figures represent a two-year change, as teachers were granted step increases in each of the last two years. Thus, those hired in as late as 2019 would have ascended the salary scale by two steps between 2019 and 2021. This analysis does not include credential supplements (graduate degrees, National Board Certification), local supplements, or bonuses.

Teachers in their first 15 years were unharmed by Gov. Cooper’s veto of House Bill 966. The General Assembly had already built-in sizable step increases for early career teachers, and they focused on raising the salaries of experienced teachers in House Bill 966.