Buncombe Commissioners help bolster teacher pay with appropriation of $6.1M in additional education funding

Press release from Buncombe County:

Local teachers will get an increase in pay thanks in part to additional funding from Buncombe County. During their meeting on Oct. 3, Commissioners approved increasing education spending by $6.1 million, with most of the funding intended to provide teacher pay raises. Earlier this year, Asheville City and Buncombe County school systems asked for additional spending, and Commissioners approved moving the tax rate from 48.8 cents to 49.8 cents per $100 of assessed value to help match state salary increases and supplement local teacher pay.

“I support this motion. When I look at what the County has done last year and this year… we are on a strong track. No other county in state has increased public school funding over 25%. We have a long history of making education a priority,” said Commission Chair Brownie Newman. “Buncombe is funding education more than Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford counties on a per-student basis … that was not case in years past. As a state, we are not where we want to be. We want to continue progress and come up with a plan to do that. I hope people do appreciate there is really progress at the local level.”

The FY24 budget (July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024) already had $107.2 million for both school systems, with Buncombe County schools getting $90.3 million and Asheville City schools receiving $16.8 million. The original funding helps support the next stage of Buncombe County Schools’ salary study. In all, some 1,000 local educators are slated to get a 2% salary increase from the County’s funding and an additional increase from the recently approved state budget.

With the additional funding, Commissioners’ commitment to education funding represents a 16.58% increase from the previous fiscal year. The previous fiscal year’s budget also saw an 11.28% increase in education spending while the state has not kept pace with these investment levels, for a combined 27.6%. In total, the funding for K-12 partners equals $113.2M.

However, state funding will also come into play now that the North Carolina General Assembly has approved its budget, which is set to give education staff an average of a 4% salary increase over this year in addition to the County’s contribution. However, state funding is spread out unevenly based on the number of years of experience each teacher has. For example, based on tenure, some teachers may receive less than 4% this year or 7% over the next two years while some may receive more. The updated County contribution brings Buncombe’s estimated current expense per pupil to $3,950, the third highest  among peer counties based on County staff research of publicly available data. Among that group, the average per pupil spending is $3,188. You can see more education funding by county comparison on the chart below.

For additional information on Buncombe County’s FY23 budget, click here. You can see the entire presentation on the school education budget amendment here.