Next week, thousands of school children right here in Mecklenburg County will go back to school—and they’ll do so with 516 teacher vacancies, not to mention vacancies in other critical positions (like bus drivers).
Next week, when thousands of teachers report to their classrooms in Mecklenburg County, they’ll do so faced with uncertainty about their own futures—because, nearly two months after they were supposed to pass a budget for the new fiscal year, Republicans in the General Assembly are still busy squabbling among themselves over the specifics.
But as the GOP in the House and Senate treat our state’s financial wellbeing like a game, nearly 95,000 teachers across our state and nearly 75,000 other public employees are waiting for the final word on what raises they’ll get, what funds they’ll have to work with, and what taxes they’ll be expected to pay.
How are we supposed to attract and retain quality talent when we can’t even tell prospective employees what their salary is going to be? How are we supposed to ask people to start a family in North Carolina when they can’t even be certain if there will be enough teachers to educate their kids?
We’ve just been ranked the best state in the country for business, but if we continue to operate this way, well, we’ll soon be able to kiss that goodbye. I’m running this campaign because I believe that we can build a future where North Carolina is the best place in the country to work, live, and raise a family—but that won’t happen if our state continues its assault on its public employees. When we shortchange our teachers, it’s our kids who really suffer.
It’s not too late to change course—but it is going to take all of us pulling together to change how our state’s government operates. If we want things to be different in the future, we have to elect enough Democrats to the General Assembly to break the supermajority (again), but we can’t stop there.
Right now, Rep. John Bradford is one of the key Republican voices on the budget conference committee who’ve spent the last several months squabbling with each other like children. He’s also the Republican frontrunner for State Treasurer—and he made it clear in his announcement that he’d been specifically asked to run by the lobbyists and the special interests. We know exactly who he’d be accountable to as North Carolina’s Treasurer, and it isn’t everyday taxpayers like you and me.
In other words, John Bradford is a huge part of the problem, and we can’t afford to let him get anywhere near the Treasurer’s office.
John, if we want to save our state, we’re going to have to walk and chew gum at the same time. We’re going to need to elect a new General Assembly that will put North Carolinians first, but we also need to take back the Treasurer’s office if we want to ensure that public employees all over NC will finally get the benefits they deserve.
