Teacher pay has been much in the news lately. Thousands of North Carolina teachers are supposed to descend on Raleigh next Friday to protest no state budget and lobby for higher salaries and more funding for public education. In addition, Gov. Stein made news recently when he proposed an 11 percent pay increase for teachers as part of his new 2026-27 budget. Legislative proposals have been less generous with the House proposing teacher salary increases of 8.7 percent over two years and the Senate, 3.3 percent over two years along with bonuses. Still, both branches have been unable to come to a budget agreement and those numbers remain largely starting points. In the meantime, educators are angry and have not received a statewide raise since July 2024.
Do teachers need higher salaries? Yes. But before we begin a full-scale discussion, let’s remember, while teachers have not received statewide raises in almost two years, teachers and educators have received bonuses, salary supplements and additional pay as part of federal covid relief efforts.
People forget that North Carolina public schools received $6.2 billion between 2020 and 2025 to aid schools and educators with the covid 19 pandemic. Figures published by the North Caroline Department of Public Instruction reveal 51.5 percent of all covid relief dollars in North Carolina were spent on salaries and benefits. Accordingly, school districts spent $2,642,859,231 on salaries, bonuses and stipends during the period 2020 to 2025.
Although the overall amounts are clear; our understanding of how the money was spent is not. That’s because when school districts received covid funding, they were only required to state what the money was spent on.
For example, if the money funded a tutoring program, there was no requirement to demonstrate what impact the program had on student learning or test scores. So, we have boxes with lots of big numbers but little understanding of how the money was distributed.
The chart below lists the 12 largest expenditures from the “salaries” category for total covid spending for North Carolina public schools from 2020 to 2025. North Carolina public schools spent over $2.6 billion dollars on “salaries” and other pay categories.
Some of the largest categories include $990.3 million was spent on “bonus pay”, another $101.1 million for “Supplement/Supplementary Pay and $133.7 for “Instructional Support.” The largest pay category is, by far, “Bonus Pay (Not Subject to Retirement)” with $990.3 million in expenditures. A review of the spreadsheet, reveals all but $22.7 million of those funds were distributed between 2022 and 2024.
| Selected Salary Expenditures by Category for Federal Covid Funds to NC Public Schools, 2020-2025 |
|
| Salary Category | Total Amount 2020-2025 |
| Salaries -Bonus Pay (not subject to Retirement | $990.3 million |
| “Teacher” Salaries | $273.8 million |
| Salary Differential | $195.4 million |
| Extended Contracts | $167.1 million |
| Instructional Support (Reg. Teacher Pay Scale | $133.7 million |
| Supplement/Supplementary Pay | $101.1 million |
| Additional Responsibility Stipend | $100 million |
| Teacher Assistant (NCLB) | $81 million |
| Tutorial Pay | $69.5 million |
| Instructional Facilitators | $65.9 million |
| Tutor (Within Instructional Day) | $55.2 million |
| Non-Certified Instructors | $52.9million |
| All Salary Expenditures | $2,642,859,231 |
For the sake of argument, let’s say bonus pay was divided equally among all education employees. Over the time period 2022 to 2024, on average there were 174,218 employees. That means school employee in North Carolina received a total of $5,684 over those three years. Again, more than likely funds are not distributed equally among all employees Still, the figure gives you some sense of how much money was distributed.
A few categories are more specific in where the money is going, these include Teacher and Instructional Support I. Over $273.8 million was awarded in Teacher salaries. What does that mean? Again about $250 million was awarded during the period 2022-2024. If evenly distributed among all teachers, teachers would have received about $2,668 over that three-year period.
The numbers listed here are totals and school districts spend money differently. For example, Wake County received $434.2 million in covid relief funds. Of that amount, WCPSS spent approximately 76 percent of all funds on salaries and benefits, including $49.7 million on teacher pay and $120.5 million for bonus pay (With No Retirement). If money is distributed equally to all teachers, teachers would have received $4,664 over two years (10,700 teachers). Likewise, regarding bonus pay all WCPSS employees would have received approximately $6,178 in bonus pay over two years.
The point; North Carolina educators received significant federal covid relief funding. However important information about how that money was specifically distributed and spent is missing.
Do North Carolina Teachers need a pay raise? Yes. However, before we begin a discussion on teacher pay wouldn’t it be worthwhile to know how our school districts spent $2.6 billion in salaries?
