A Supreme Court order didn’t end lawsuit on NC school underfunding. Here’s what’s next.
Even though state lawmakers have recently spent more on North Carolina’s public schools, a top state official says they’re still falling hundreds of millions of dollars short of complying with a court order to properly fund the education system.
In 2021 a judge ruled that Republican lawmakers have underfunded education to such an extent that they’re violating a guarantee, enshrined in the North Carolina Constitution, that all children should be able to receive a basic education.
Then in November the state Supreme Court gave that ruling teeth by deciding that it wasn’t just philosophical — the courts really could force the legislature to spend the money.
It was a major development in the lawsuit, often called the Leandro case, which has been making its way through the state court system for more than 20 years.
That important November ruling came down 4-3 along party lines, with all the court’s Democrats in the majority and every Republican dissenting. It was one of the last rulings the court issued before the start of 2023, when the court’s majority flipped to Republican control.
But because Republican legislators had recently written and passed a new state budget shortly before that ruling, the Supreme Court sent the case back down to trial. There, the two sides could continue fighting about exactly how much lawmakers still need to spend when they return to session this year to write a new state budget.
On Thursday, the State Board of Education unanimously passed a motion urging the General Assembly and Gov. Roy Cooper to support full implementation of the court-ordered Leandro spending plan.
And over the holidays there were two other developments in the case. In addition to the state budget official’s new estimate of how much money is needed, the case also got a new judge.
Leandro spending analysis
The 2021 court order said lawmakers needed to spend nearly $800 million more to comply with the state constitution.
Now, however, it’s likely down to under $700 million, wrote Anca Grozav, the chief deputy director of the state budget office, in a December court filing.
Republican legislative leaders have strongly opposed the rulings against them. They have said they believe schools are already funded at an acceptable level — and that even if that’s not the case, judges shouldn’t be able to force the legislature to spend money, due to concerns over the separation of powers.
But they lost those arguments in court, so now new hearings will establish how much they need to spend to comply with the plan. Grozav’s affidavit, as a top state budget official, could strongly influence the final figure.
Specifically, she wrote, her office’s analysis shows that the legislature got to around 60% of the funding level they were ordered to hit.
Fully funding the court-ordered spending plan, she said, will require an extra $258 million in year two of the plan and an extra $420 million in year three, for a total of $678 million.
New judge in the case
In the other development, Judge Michael Robinson stepped down from overseeing the case.
He had been hand-picked last year to oversee the case by Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby — a Republican who has been critical of the rulings against the GOP-led legislature.
Newby put Robinson in charge after the judge who had been overseeing the case, David Lee, ordered the legislature to pay nearly $1.8 billion. Robinson later revised it down to just under $800 million, The News & Observer reported.
But litigation will now continue over how much is still needed, after the budget passed last year. Plus, a new state budget will also be written and debated over the next several months.
Predicting plenty of ongoing litigation in the case, Robinson wrote a letter to Newby in December saying it was shaping up to be more work than he signed up for. He asked to be taken off the case so he could get back to his regular job, as a business court judge.
Newby honored Robinson’s request and named a different judge to oversee legal wrangling in the case.
James Ammons, a longtime Cumberland County trial court judge, took over on Dec. 29.
Ammons will now oversee the next steps — which could include deciding whether to accept the numbers proposed by Grozav and the state budget office.
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This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "A Supreme Court order didn’t end lawsuit on NC school underfunding. Here’s what’s next.."
