North Carolina

In North Carolina, teacher pay is so low that educators are turning out for job fairs hosted by other states with the promise of higher salaries [http://bit.ly/1lJQ1e2] elsewhere. And the Tar Heel State ranks near the bottom — at 46th in the country — when it comes to teachers’ salaries. Meg Wiehe, director of state tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told Morning Education those issues are at the heart of two proposals coming out of the state legislature. To pay for teacher pay increases, the state senate proposed asking teachers to give up their tenure rights, asking state residents to voluntarily return their state tax refunds and firing teaching assistants to save money. The state house’s idea would pay for increases through extra state lottery revenue generated by increased spending on lottery advertising. Both chambers will try to come to a compromise in the coming days with the start of the fiscal year looming on July 1.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s Jenice Robinson previews what’s happening in the state on the tax front. “The North Carolina Legislature is back in session this week, and two odd proposals are on the table,” Robinson writes in an email. “North Carolina teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation, and they haven’t had a salary increase since 2008. The state legislature, after enacting major tax cuts that lose hundreds of millions in revenue, is trying to figure out how to fund teacher pay increases. The Senate has proposed asking state residents to voluntarily return their state tax refunds. The state House has proposed increasing the amount of revenue spent on advertising the state lottery with the expectation that advertising would bring in hundreds of millions in lottery revenue, which could be used to fund teachers salaries.”