RALEIGH — A bill filed in the North Carolina House seeks to raise teacher pay, bring back master’s degree pay and establish a study of school funding.
House Bill 192, titled Raise Teacher Pay & Dollar Allot. Study, was filed Feb. 25 by Rep. Erin Paré (R-Wake).
“Proud to file this bill today to raise starting salaries for our teachers to $50k, restore master’s pay, and study a dollar allotment system for pay so local districts have more flexibility to pay more for hard to hire positions, for example,” said Paré in a post on X.
She also thanked the other primary sponsors, Reps. Donny Lambeth (R-Forsyth), Tricia Cotham (R-Mecklenburg) and Mike Schietzelt (R-Wake).
The legislation would implement a new monthly salary schedule for the 2025-26 fiscal year starting at $5,000 per month ($50,000 a year based on a 10-month pay rate) for beginning teachers. The current starting teacher salary is $41,000. The rate would increase based on years of experience up to $6,823 for those with 25 years or more of experience.
The bill would also reinstate education-based salary supplements that had previously been eliminated, including a 12% supplement for National Board-certified teachers, 10% for those with master’s degrees and additional amounts for those with six-year or doctoral degrees.
House Bill 192 would appropriate approximately $1.6 billion in recurring funds to increase teacher salaries and $8 million to reinstate the education-based supplements.
- A breakdown of the pay raise items in the bill includes:
- 12% salary supplement for teachers with National Board certification
- 10% salary supplement for teachers with master’s degrees (“M” teachers)
- $126 monthly supplement for teachers with six-year degree licensure (in addition to “M” supplement)
- $253 monthly supplement for teachers with doctoral degree licensure (in addition to “M” supplement)
- 10% salary supplement for certified school nurses
- $100 monthly supplement for school counselors licensed at master’s level or higher
- Special provisions for school psychologists, speech pathologists and audiologists, including higher starting salary (equivalent to step 6) and supplements of 10% plus $350 monthly
Additionally, the bill directs the North Carolina Collaboratory to study and report on the feasibility of implementing a dollar allotment system based on average daily membership rather than guaranteed positions for compensating teachers, instructional support personnel, and assistant principals. The study must be completed by Feb. 15, 2026.
The legislature’s 2023 budget deal included a 7% raise for state employees over the biennium. For teachers and noncertified staff, that plan had an average raise of 7%, and starting teacher pay was raised to $41,000 for FY 2024-25, which is an 11% increase. According to the Senate Republicans at that time, the average teacher pay was to increase to $60,671 by 2024-25, which they said “is on par with the state median household income.”
