Last month, the state Board of Elections issued an opinion allowing elected officials to make gifts out of their campaign funds to schools for the purpose of buying school supplies.
This has to be good news for leaders who recently passed an $19 Billion budget and asked taxpayers to pony up an additional $1 Billion. Perdue said more money was needed to ?protect education?. Hackney claims to have “saved education.” And Basnight continued to protect UNC Chapel Hill.
The SBOE ruling will allow them to put their money where their mouths are. As of June 30, Perdue has almost $500,000 in her campaign account, Hackney has over $200,000 and Basnight has almost $100,000 just sitting around. Enough to hire 26 new teachers, buy a bunch of textbooks, restore bonuses for math and science teachers or restore cuts to the Governor’s School.
If everyone (Senate and House) who voted for the budget pitched in as well, they may not have had to raise taxes to save education after all. Let’s see if they’re as generous with their own money as they have been with ours.
