'State of the State': Cooper tells NC lawmakers to invest in schools to keep economy booming
Ever since Roy Cooper became governor in 2016, he has pushed legislators to invest more in state workers and in government as a whole.
Cooper made that same argument Monday night in his State of the State address. This time, though, the state's top Democrat argued the need for more funding is urgent. And the state’s revenue forecasts show that Republicans — who control the legislative purses — have the resources to deliver.
“We must not forget that once-in-a-generation opportunities require once-in-a-generation investments,” Cooper said.
A key theme of Cooper’s speech: How the state’s fast-growing clean energy sector has the potential to emulate successful periods from the past, like the creation of Research Triangle Park.
“North Carolina is now a clean energy destination, bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs to parts of our state that years ago knew more factory closures than ribbon cuttings,” Cooper said.
Rural parts of the state have been hard-hit in recent years because many blue collar jobs were in industries that executives easily outsourced overseas, such as textiles manufacturing. Now that the economy has picked back up, the factories coming into the state tend to be more centered around high-tech manufacturing, like in the biopharmaceutical and clean energy sectors.
Cooper’s speech bragged on the state’s growing economy — and gave the legislature some credit, too. But he added that with all the growth happening in more high-skilled fields, North Carolina’s education system needs a shot in the arm as well. “Because these new jobs require more skill, the education pipeline from early childhood all the way through community college and universities is more important than ever,” Cooper said.
The governor typically proposes a budget to the legislature; it just rarely gets taken very seriously by the Republicans who control both chambers of the General Assembly. Cooper again pressed lawmakers to seriously consider his proposals this year — which, when they come out, are expected to include a large increase to public education funding.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson delivered the GOP’s rebuttal — an unusual move since legislative leaders, not executive office-holders, ordinarily give the response. He called for more spending on schools, although without specifics, focusing more on the roles teachers should and shouldn't be playing in the classroom.
"Their job is to teach. Plain and simple," Robinson said. "And what should they be teaching our students? They should be teaching our students how to think – not what to think – ensuring that personal or political ideologies stay out of the classroom and that we get back to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic."
Robinson recorded his remarks before Cooper's speech. Asked afterward if he'd like to respond specifically to anything Cooper said, he declined to comment.
On the education front, Cooper pushed for big spending increases including double-digit raises for teachers, and more spending on school safety measures.
Republican lawmakers recently lost a high-profile Supreme Court case, and were ordered to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more per year, after the court found recent budgets have violated the state’s constitutional guarantee of “a sound, basic education” for all children.
GOP leaders have indicated they’re unlikely to spend what the court ordered them to, claiming that judges have no right to issue such an order. The state Supreme Court recently issued an order indicating that it plans to rehear the case — a decision that came shortly after the court’s majority flipped from Democratic to Republican.
Cooper said he plans to propose a state budget that fully funds the remedial plan ordered from that lawsuit — known as the Leandro case, for one of the plaintiffs — without needing to raise taxes. And he urged the Supreme Court justices, most of whom were in attendance, to respect the precedent of the previous court.
“The budget I will present to you invests in the entire education plan ordered by the court,” Cooper told lawmakers. “It gives teachers and principals double-digit raises, it keeps the buses running, it helps kids with special needs, it keeps schools safe, it does not raise taxes and it balances the budget.”
And while Cooper did say his plan won't raise taxes, he also opposed GOP plans to continue cutting taxes. The state's corporate income tax is set to drop to 0% by 2030.
Robinson, however, used his speech to urge lawmakers to keep the tax cuts coming.
"The Republican-led General Assembly turned a state that was billions of dollars in debt and struggling financially into an economic powerhouse," Robinson said. He added that looking ahead, "We have the opportunity to provide relief to our fellow citizens by further cutting personal income taxes for all hard-working North Carolinians."
In addition to other budgetary pressures, state agencies are struggling to deliver services to a rapidly-growing population. The government’s wage offerings aren’t keeping up with salaries available in the private sector, and some state department job vacancy rates are now at 10-year highs. Meanwhile, state researchers say the state will rake in $3.25 billion more than initially expected for the fiscal year ending this summer.
Cooper’s speech pointed to work on infrastructure and clean water that the state is already carrying out, or will be starting soon, using federal funding from the 2021 stimulus package passed by President Joe Biden and other Democrats in Congress.
“Thanks to the generational investments of the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law we’re investing more than $2 billion to do what once seemed a faraway dream,” he said.
Robinson criticized such programs in his speech.
"Here in North Carolina, Democrats would follow the lead of President Biden and their counterparts in Congress and go on a spending spree with your money," Robinson said. "We can’t afford that."
On the subject of local government, Cooper particularly focused on law enforcement.
Cooper called for state lawmakers to continue implementing recommendations for law enforcement reforms that his 2020 racial justice task force recommended. He also called for more funding for police, not just for training but for raises, too.
“Let’s invest the resources to recruit and retain more good law enforcement officers and support them with the better pay and training that they deserve,” Cooper said.
Robinson also focused on police in his speech, saying that they need more support from politicians and the public as a whole. "We must restore public trust in law enforcement and return an air of respect to the men and women in blue," he said.
Robinson is coming off a high-profile speech Saturday at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference, where he touched on some of those issues and referred to his intentions to run for governor as one of the state's “most poorly kept secrets.”
