August 9, 2021
The Senate passed its budget more than a month ago, and now we are beginning to get a peek at parts of the House budget. Thursday morning part of the House education budget was released in the House Education Appropriations Committee. However a critical part of the education budget—salaries—was not revealed. The bottom line of the appropriation is $10.1 billion for K–12 for the first year of the biennium and $10.08 billion for the second year. For community colleges, the amount is approximately $1.2 billion each year.
The House is continuing its drive to micro–manage curriculum though the budget: “Under a special revision to ‘modernize selection of instructional materials,’ local school districts and charter schools would have to post course materials online for anyone to see. This includes books, activities, and digital resources. Individual teachers would also have to post their lesson plans online. The House tried to pass this through a separate bill in May, but it did not make it through the Senate. For more information, see https://www.ednc.org/2021–08–05–nc–house–starts–releasing–portions–of–its–education–budget/?fbclid=IwAR13kf0M2dZVh9WQIrWoIGKJhjlp9zCEmNPNIC76oRsg2fo3O0bwoxDEPr0
This is only a small portion of the overall budget. On Tuesday, August 10, the House Appropriations Committee will take up the entire budget. After the House budget passes out of this committee, it will go to the House floor for discussion, possible amendments and a vote, which will probably be along party lines. Then, since the House budget will differ from the Senate budget, a conference committee will be appointed to resolve the differences before the final budget is sent to the governor for his signature. Two years ago the Governor vetoed the budget, no compromise was reached, and the governor’s veto was not overridden. As a consequence, we have not had a state budget for two years. There is no guarantee that will not happen again.
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