Yesterday at the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology Phil Elmer, Director of Technology for the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State gave an update on the 21st Century School Connectivity project.
The project gets $12 million a year from state coffers. This provides 85% of the cost of the program for each local education agency. The remaining 15% must come out of local budgets. And that 15 % cannot supplant any local funding already in place for school technology.
As more and more responsibilities (school personnel, roads, water and sewer and jails just to name a few) are passed on to local governments, local taxpayers will be expected to pay more in property and local sales tax.
For an in-depth look at local tax burdens and how they compare across the state, see our latest edition of By the Numbers.