RALEIGH – At a time when demands for an educated workforce are only growing, the proposed 2019-21 budget the state Senate adopted last week reaffirms the Senate’s tendency to under invest in higher education.
Senate leaders made great fanfare out of giving state employees a 5% raise over two years – yet inexplicably, they left out university and community college instructors. Despite a $640 million revenue surplus this year,1 they would give university faculty a mere 1% raise – the same as the state House’s budget.
After years of meager raises, that won’t improve the competitiveness of our state’s public universities.
Yet the Senate budget would cut corporate income and franchise taxes by $107.6 million in 2019-20 and $255 million in 2020-21. And it would put $1.1 billion – far more than required – into the state’s Rainy Day Fund over two years.2
Reviving an old issue, the Senate plan also would cut $14 million for UNC-Chapel Hill and $4 million for NC State University to offset “Facilities and Administrative” receipts (“F&A” or “overhead receipts”) that the two research universities receive as part of federal grants.3 Though it has threatened to do so in the past, the legislature has never gone so far as to take overhead receipts from the state’s research universities.
While the House emphasized investments in universities among the considerable capital projects listed in its budget, the Senate does allocate $500 million for capital projects at the state’s 58 community colleges – a significant commitment.
But as House and Senate members begin negotiating details of the budget in a conference committee, let the numbers speak for the rest of the Senate budget:
1https://www.wral.com/senate-republicans-advance-their-nc-budget-plan-this-week/18415145/.
2https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2019/Budget/2019/Committee_Report_Senate_Appropriation_Base_Budget_PCS_as_amended_May_29_2019.pdf, p. A1.
3Ibid, pp. B40, B43.
MA says
“1% or $500, whichever is greater” for faculty in the UNC system and NC Community College faculty. First, how sad is it that faculty is thought of so poorly? My professors (at whatever level) at UNC-CH were amazing and I know many who struggled to make ends meet. Now as a staff member at a IHL, I cannot afford a place of my own. No raise in the budget for staff.
PeaceMaker says
I have always taken great pride in the UNC Systems Consortium of Universities. Over the past decade, i’ve watch politicians “chip at” and erode slowly the reputation of this system. This includes the recruitment of quality faculty members and innovative research supported at these UNC System universities. One starts to question their motives and maybe these politicians are making these decisions, because it simply does not impact them or their family (children) anymore. A 1% salary increase is absolutely embarrassing and sends a poor message to other public university systems (Texas, Alabama, California, etc.) that North Carolina is not and not longer value educating and preparing our next generations of thinkers and scholars. My wife and I are proud graduates of several of these UNC schools and currently have a daughter attending UNCC. However, I must now rethink about whether I will send my last child to an UNC system school that do not value and respect the faculty members I am entrusting and expecting to receive the higher return on my investment. It seems that I may need to go back and retrieve those “private school” pamphlets from the recycle bin give these schools “serious” considerations.
Danny Loyd says
No raise for me no votes
Danny Loyd says
$500 is no raise and my group will vote you out next election