Priorities: Governor deserves credit for emphasis on teacher pay

Gov. Pat McCrory released his budget proposal for 2016-2017 this week, and it included pay raises for state employees.

It was not met with universal applause, however.

That's because the budget plan would give public school teachers more of a raise than most state employees, 5 percent as opposed to 3 percent bonuses, generally.

The governor has made it a priority to focus on targeting permanent pay raises to attract workers in hard-to-staff positions.

Teaching certainly fills that bill.

Juggling a budget isn't easy, any one of us knows that. Deciding where to spend and how much to spend on any one item is often difficult.

We believe the governor should be praised for making teachers his priority. We know that all state employees deserve better pay, but when there is only so much money to go around you have to prioritize.

Teachers perform a job that most people would not, or could not do. They take our children and try to help them become successful adults. There is no greater priority than that.

Published in Editorials on April 29, 2016 12:01 PM