Beginning in the 2021-2022 school year, North Carolina stopped supporting a well-known and highly used program for teachers and other “10-month” educators: installment pay plans.

This allowed for educators to receive their salaries in 12 increments so that each month brought a paycheck and keep a financial equilibrium for those who wanted the installment plan.

The state gives money to each LEA (school system) to disperse as a base salary for teaching in the public school system. The local LEA then had the latitude to spread that salary out over 12 months for educators to stabilize their income throughout summer months.

This teacher used that plan. Made is easier to budget.

So why did the NC General Assembly stop this? Why did the state start telling the local LEAs to not offer this option as part of being an employee in public schools?

There are reports that the state did it to modernize its business practices.

Actually, it is more out of spite. It is another action in the playbook of the current NC General Assembly to make the teaching profession have to jump over another hurdle to keep staying in the job. What has happened with salary is not just the amount of pay a teacher receives, but how the teacher receives.

Contrast that with the fact the NCGA rarely gets its business done within a set time frame and is often at a manufactured impasse on the budget.