Raleigh, North Carolina (WNCN) – A bill was passed by the North Carolina Senate on Monday that will give hundreds of millions of dollars more to private school options across the state.
The bill was passed with a vote of 27 to 17 across party lines. Every Republican lawmaker voted for the bill, but every Democratic member fought against it.
A supplemental spending plan was also approved during this vote. It includes more money for Medicaid, broadband access in rural areas, and rules that sheriffs must help federal immigration officials.
Last week, Republican leaders in the Senate said they had reached a deal on a spending plan that includes $463 million for the state’s Opportunity Scholarship. The Senate then met again. It passed both the plan and overrides of vetoes.
The bill will be voted on by the House on Wednesday. The spending plan will be sent to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk if it passes, but he won’t sign it. He said that an override vote would be more likely to happen in November.
The N.C. General Assembly got rid of the income limits on the grants in 2023, so all families could get money to send their child to a private school. Scholarships ranging from $3,360 per child for the wealthiest families to $7,468 per child for poor families were part of the new rules.
When the state’s new school voucher program opened in February, families could start asking for them. Five hundred thousand students had to wait because of the high demand.
A lot of these families got together in July to talk about how upset they were that the N.C. House and Senate stopped meeting without agreeing on how to pay for more coupons after the program was expanded.
Now, the new plan, which calls for more spending through the early 2030s, gives families on the waiting list the chance to get their fall private school costs reimbursed.
Part of the plan is to spend about $377 million on Medicaid and another $160 million to deal with the rising number of students in public schools and community colleges from K–12.
Rachel Brady, a mother from Wake Forest who led a rally in July to ask the General Assembly to get rid of the waiting, was happy with Monday’s vote. Brady said that in the end, it should help her family and other families who have chosen or want to choose private schools for their children with money.
“We’re so grateful that they heard us,” Brady, whose family is on the waiting list, said in an interview. “We’re really thrilled.”
A lot of Democratic state leaders, like Gov. Roy Cooper, said that Republicans planned to fully fund the growth of private school vouchers this year with up to $625 million in new money.
He said that paying attention to the needs of public schools should be the top priority with those millions of dollars in government money. Other Democrats said that families with low incomes and those living in rural areas will be hurt the most by the program’s growth.
The governor also said last week that the plan could lead to a “budget crisis” because state income dropped during the last fiscal year. There are already plans for more tax cuts.
Guilford County Democrat Sen. Michael Garrett said on the floor, “We’re telling kids in schools that don’t have enough money that their education is less important than giving money from taxpayers to people who can pay for private school.”
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor, was in charge of the debate. Robinson was the president of the Senate, but he was mostly absent from meetings on the chamber floor this year.
The plan also includes parts of a House bill that require sheriffs to follow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers. These are orders to hold people accused of serious crimes if they are thought to be in the country illegally. A judge would order that those prisoners be held for up to 48 hours so that ICE agents could pick them up.
Republicans say the bill is needed because some sheriffs in counties with a lot of Democrats have ignored ICE detainers in the past.
But people who are against the bill say it would unfairly target North Carolina’s Hispanic community. A news conference with the Hispanic group coalition Colectivo NC on Monday brought together about 30 people to voice these concerns before the vote.
“This bill not only takes away the rights of immigrants, but it also breaks trust between law enforcement and our community,” said Pilar Rocha-Goldberg, president of El Centro Hispano, a group that speaks up for the state’s Hispanic population.
As Senate members were back in Raleigh for the vote on the spending plan, they also used the time to override Cooper’s last five vetoes. Three of them were overturned by the House in July, so they will now become law.
The first bill adds more types of roads that all-terrain vehicles can use. The second bill changes rental laws by, for example, making it illegal for local governments to pass laws that stop owners from discriminating against people who want to rent with federal housing vouchers.
The last one stops state offices from taking payments in central bank digital currencies, which are like cryptocurrencies.
It overrode two other vetoes on changes to the building code and court papers. The bills will now be voted on again in the House.