Who really funds schools?

Stung by “outrageous claims” that they cut school spending, N.C. House Republicans responded with a “fact sheet” that blames cities and counties.

“In other states, education is funded primarily by local governments — with property taxes and bonds — and not with state dollars, as we do in North Carolina,” the document says. “The fact remains that our county and city governments could choose to spend more on educating our children, but they don’t.

It makes the same point about teachers’ salaries: “The legislature sets the base pay for public school teachers in North Carolina. The actual pay level for teachers is determined at the local level. Local governments can always decide to pay teachers more. But local governments seem to have other priorities than our teachers.”

It goes on to fault Asheville for some of its “other priorities,” such as spending $2 million for its downtown art museum. “That $2 million could have been spent giving every one of Asheville’s teachers an additional $1,000 annual pay raise — every year for the next 10 years.”

This is a dodge. In North Carolina, state funds cover the bulk of K-12 costs because the state constitution assigns responsibility to the legislature. Local governments are allowed to supplement state appropriations for school operating expenses but are not required to do so.

This assignment of responsibility helps explain why North Carolina’s state tax rates were higher than those in many other states. With the legislature cutting those rates, the House GOP communication indicates local governments will be pressured to make up for lost revenue.

Some probably will, even if they have to raise property taxes, rather than see their schools suffer for lack of funding. But many North Carolina counties can’t afford to kick in their own dollars to retain teacher assistants, hold class sizes down or raise salaries.

North Carolina’s formula, giving responsibility to the legislature, was meant to provide equitable funding for school systems across the state. Children in the poorest counties deserve similar opportunities to those afforded children in relatively wealthy counties. Equality doesn’t exist today because some counties add substantial supplemental funding while others offer very little. The gap will widen if the state leans on local governments to kick in more.

It’s a shabby political strategy to cast blame at cities and counties for low teacher salaries or other school funding deficiencies. That ignores a constitutional mandate that “the General Assembly shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools ... wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.”

If Republican legislators want to shift that burden to local governments, they’ll have to rewrite the constitution.