Cooper vetoes bill expanding private school vouchers, require sheriffs' ICE cooperation
By Emily Walkenhorst
Published September 20, 2024
Gov. Roy Cooper has vetoed a bill that would increase private school voucher funding by $463.5 million over this year and next year.
House Bill 10 would also force sheriffs to work with federal immigration officials to detain people who are in the U.S. illegally in some circumstances.
The bill passed through both the North Carolina House and Senate last week, largely along party lines. Lawmakers will need a three-fifths majority of votes to override the veto, and Republican lawmakers have overridden some Cooper vetoes since obtaining a supermajority last year. Lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene in November, where they plan to vote.
“Private school vouchers are the biggest threat to public schools in decades,” Cooper said. Public schools lose funding for every student who opts out of the public school and into a private school instead, because public schools are funded by headcounts. Cooper and other critics Friday argued that schools — especially rural schools — have many costs that won’t change just because a few students leave, but they’ll end up with less money to cover them.
The biggest portion of the $1.1 billion bill will go toward clearing the 54,000-student waitlist for the state’s general voucher program, known as Opportunity Scholarships. The waitlist boomed this year after state lawmakers remove family income limits on eligibility and made it so current private school students would now be eligible.
The program provides checks of up to about $7,500 to a private school when they enroll a family that has applied and receive a voucher to attend it. Higher-income families receive smaller amounts, down to just more than $3,000 for the wealthiest families.
In a statement Friday, Senate President Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said it's possible for the state to have both "a well-funded public school system and robust school choice options." He noted Cooper's veto puts on hold other appropriations, including some funding for enrollment increases at public schools and community colleges this fall.
Mike Long, president of the voucher-support Parents for Education Freedom in North Carolina, expressed little surprise for Cooper’s veto, noting that Cooper has long voice his opposition.
“While Governor Cooper continues to stand opposed to parental school choice calling the Opportunity Scholarship Program a ‘scheme’ we know firsthand that tens of thousands of families in our state have benefited from this program, while we also saw historic demand for the program this year,” Long said in a statement Friday.
Many parents have pushed lawmakers to clear the waitlist, saying the expansion of voucher eligibility was akin a promise that they should keep. Many families had expected to be able to get a voucher this year.
The expansion of the voucher program has prompted supporters and opponents to acknowledge that public schools sometimes don’t provide everything a family wants or needs from a school. But those people are split over whether to provide an immediate out for some families who feel that way or to invest in improving the conditions of the public schools so that people don’t feel that way.
Finding rural opposition
On Friday, Cooper brought out four county and school leaders from more rural parts of the state who are opposed to voucher expansion, including one who said she was a Republican.
Wendi Craven, a Burke County school board member and Hickory City Schools principal, said she was an educator first and a Republican second.
“Public schools need more money to support our children,” Craven said. She noted that lack of a resolution in the 30-year-old lawsuit by five lower-income counties against the state, Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina, also known as Leandro. The counties have alleged the state is insufficiently resourcing them. Parties in the case have agreed to a plan to address court findings, but lawmakers — who largely haven’t participated in the legal process until recently — have resisted and declined to fund the plan.
“I don’t understand how the Leandro case can be fought for years with no progress and then miraculously millions of dollars are found for vouchers for private education,” Craven said.
Other speakers noted the need for more resources in public schools, the fact that private schools don’t have to admit every student or provide special needs services, and the critical role that public schools — and churches — play in rural communities.
ICE cooperation and other parts of the bill
Under House Bill 10, county sheriffs would need to hold in detention anyone who is in the U.S. illegally, if federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests it.
Most North Carolina sheriffs do this already but some — such as those in Wake, Durham and Orange counties — have argued it’s unconstitutional to hold someone once they’ve made bail.
The bill also expands the list of alleged crimes under which law enforcement agencies are required to look into a detainees immigration status. That now includes both felonies and more serious misdemeanors, such as assault or violation of a violence protective order.
In addition to the $463.5 million for vouchers and $24.7 million for vouchers for students with disabilities, the agreements includes $64 million for community college enrollment growth, $95 million for K-12 enrollment increases, $377 million for Medicaid, $55.1 million for infrastructure improvements in Chatham County and $150 million for transportation improvements at a Randolph County megasite.
Cooper said Friday he’s always been opposed to requiring ICE cooperation in the circumstances outlined in the bill. He said the bill otherwise contained “some” good things, but not enough to outweigh the bad things — namely, vouchers.
In a statement Friday, the North Carolina GOP called both the voucher expansion and ICE cooperation "common sense" measures.
"Requiring Sheriffs to cooperate with ICE while over 10 million illegal immigrants have poured across the Southern border is a common sense measure to help keep North Carolina safe," spokesman Matt Mercer said.
On Tuesday, Wake County Public School System leaders said they were worried the $95 million for K-12 enrollment increases may not be enough statewide. They said state leaders were hoping for $200 million to have as a “contingency fund” because schools are now funded solely based on the prior school year’s enrollment — rather than also having the option of making enrollment projections. Schools are funded for every student that they enroll, and schools with higher enrollment won’t automatically receive funding for those new students unless the state has amassed sufficient money in the reserve to pay it out.