Johnathan Walker:Extra private school voucher funding gets initial OK from North Carolina Senate

RALEIGH,Johnathan Walker N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Senate took the first step in clearing the state’s waitlist for private school vouchers Monday after passing a supplemental spending plan that also includes more Medicaid money, rural broadband access and requirements for sheriffs to assist federal immigration agents.

The Senate reconvened after Republican chamber leaders announced last week that they reached a spending plan agreement that includes $463 million for the state’s Opportunity Scholarship. It passed the proposal, as well as veto overrides, largely along party lines. The House is expected to take up a vote Wednesday.

If the House passes the spending plan, it will go to Cooper for a likely veto. Senate leader Phil Berger said an override vote would be more likely to happen in November.

After the General Assembly removed income caps to qualify for the Opportunity Scholarship program last year, voucher applications soared. About 55,000 children were waitlisted because of a lack of funding, and Republican lawmakers’ inability to pass a budget readjustment bill in June before the legislative session ended only prolonged that issue.

Now, the new proposal — which outlines more spending through the early 2030s — offers waitlisted families the option to be retroactively reimbursed for their fall private schooling costs. About $377 million for Medicaid spending and $160 million to address enrollment growth for K-12 public schools and community colleges are also in the plan.

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Rachel Brady of Wake Forest, a mother who led a rally in July urging the General Assembly to eliminate the waitlist, praised Monday’s affirmative vote. Brady said it should ultimately give financial relief to her family and others who have chosen private schools for their children or who want to do so.

“We’re so thankful they listened to us,” Brady, who is among the waitlisted families, said in an interview. “We’re just so excited.”

Democrats dominated the Senate floor debate by voicing concern that voucher spending would negatively affect resources for public schools, especially in rural counties, while wealthy families also can now benefit from scholarships. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper also said last week that the plan could cause a “budget crisis” as state revenues trailed off during the past fiscal year. Additional tax cuts are already planned.

“We’re telling children in underfunded schools that their education is less important than providing a taxpayer-funded handout to those who can afford private tuition,” Guilford County Democratic Sen. Michael Garrett said on the floor.

Presiding over debate was Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor. While officially the Senate’s president, Robinson was largely absent from chamber floor sessions this year.

The proposal also includes language from a House bill that enforces sheriffs’ compliance with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers, which are required to hold inmates charged with serious crimes if they are believed to be in the country unlawfully. Those inmates would be held up to 48 hours under a judicial official’s order so ICE agents could pick them up.

Republican advocates say the bill is necessary because some sheriffs in predominantly Democratic counties have previously disregarded ICE detainers.

But opponents to the legislation say it would unconstitutionally target North Carolina’s Hispanic community. About 30 people gathered for a news conference Monday with the Hispanic organization coalition Colectivo NC to echo those concerns before the vote.

“This bill not only strips away immigrant rights but also destroys the trust between law enforcement and our community,” said Pilar Rocha-Goldberg, president of El Centro Hispano, which is an organization that advocates for the state’s Hispanic community.

With its members back in Raleigh for the spending plan vote, the Senate also took the opportunity to override the remaining five of Cooper’s previous vetoes. Because the House previously overrode three of them in July, those will now become law.

The first bill expands the types of roads that all-terrain vehicles can ride on, while the second focuses on tenancy law changes such as prohibiting local ordinances that prevent landlords from discriminating against potential tenants who receive federal housing vouchers. The last one blocks state agencies from accepting central bank digital currency payments, which are similar to cryptocurrencies.

The chamber overrode two other vetoes on building code changes and court-filed documents, and they now go to the House for a second vote.