Senators walk out of budget meeting
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- Wednesday, state House and Senate members made clear just how far apart they are on teacher pay raises and the state budget.
In an open meeting intended to shore up their differences, Republicans on both sides dug in their heels. So much so, the Senate walked out at one point. The House was intent on hearing from school superintendents; Senators said that was against the rules and - literally - up and left as House lawmakers called up and listened to educators and teacher advocates.
When the Senate came back 45 minutes later the fireworks resumed. The House offered a 'compromise' bill that Senators railed for not giving an inch. The dialogue went something like this:
Senator: "Other than shoring up numbers, what's different about this budget?"
House Rep: "There are not a lot of major differences in here at this point."
Senator: "To me this is barely worth the ink you wrote this on."
Senator: "It didn't inch closer our position, not one bit."
At issue, the Senate wants to give teachers an 11% pay hike but at a cost. Until yesterday, they wanted to trade that for teacher tenure and 4,000-6,000 teacher assistant positions. The House is looking to give teachers a much smaller pay increase but with no strings attached.
The Senate dropped the tenure proposal yesterday but would still pay for its plan by cutting TAs. Senators saw that as a major concession; apparently, not major enough to convince House members to move on their position. It was enough to prompt Sen. Neal Hunt from Raleigh to lament, "If you're negotiating, you're supposed to get closer together, there's some compromise that's supposed to be going on."
After the two sides adjourned, House Speaker Thom Tillis told ABC11 he thinks the House plan is more in line with what educators want. "If you go to a teacher," Tillis said, "and say I can give you an 8% raise but you lose your teaching assistant, or I can give you a 5% raise and you can keep your teaching assistant, almost without exception, they say 5% is great."
Later in the afternoon, Governor Pat McCrory weighed in on the debate during an education cabinet meeting. He has consistently sided with the House proposal, which more closely mirrors his own plan. "They need a pay raise," McCrory said, "but not at the expense of TAs or students...and not at the expense of Medicaid."
Medicaid is a critical piece of the conversation as any major changes to the state budget when it comes to teachers would likely need a major off-set elsewhere in the budget, likely from health care costs.
When ABC11 asked Speaker Tillis whether he expects the House to give on TAs (so Medicaid or other budget line items aren't touched), he replied, "Not sure...not likely."
