Alamance-Burlington school officials forecast Wednesday afternoon that the county-funded supplement for ABSS employees will remain frozen at their current levels if the state budget passes with 8 percent average raises for teachers.
School officials initially estimated that ABSS would need an additional $925,149 in county current expense funding to increase teacher supplements when they submitted their budget request for 2026-27 to Alamance County government officials earlier this year. At the time, state legislators had proposed teacher pay raises ranging between 2.3 and 3 percent.
ABSS employees receive the county-funded supplement on top of their annual, state-funded salaries.
The General Assembly edged closer to passing the state’s biennial 2025-27 budget Wednesday afternoon, which includes average raises of up to 8 percent for teachers and increases in starting pay for teachers from $41,000 to $48,000 per year.
By Wednesday afternoon, the state house had voted 92-23 to pass the budget, including 69 Republicans and 23 Democrats who voted in favor; 23 Democrats voted against, according to a breakdown of the roll call vote.
The state senate voted 36-13 to pass the budget Wednesday afternoon, with 27 Republicans and nine Democrats voting in favor; nine Democrats voted against.
“As we shared with county leadership ahead of mediation, with the state increase and the current county allotment, ABSS will freeze certified supplements, because the supplement is tied to the pay scale,” school officials told The Alamance News Wednesday afternoon. (See accompanying chart for a breakdown of the existing supplements for ABSS teachers and administrators).
“Any locally paid ABSS certified staff will be covered by local dollars,” ABSS officials confirmed for the newspaper Wednesday afternoon. “Employee benefit increases and locally paid certified staff have already been accounted for in our budget.”
ABSS had fewer than 25 employees whose annual salaries were county-funded during the 2025-26 fiscal year, school officials said Wednesday.
ABSS had hoped to persuade the commissioners to increase county funding for day-to-day operations, or current expenses, by approximately $3.2 million, which represented the difference between the $61.9 million the school board requested and the $58.8 million the commissioners allocated for current expenses for the 2026-27 fiscal year that started Wednesday.
At the outset of a 7½-hour mediation session between the school board and county commissioners last Monday morning, ABSS chief finance officer Tony Messer said that the $3.2 million in additional county funding for current expenses would cover expected increases in costs for employee benefits, including teacher supplements.
ABSS also hoped to use the additional county funding for current expenses for other day-to-day expenses such as: increasing county supplements for administrators, principals, assistant principals, teachers, and classified staff (i.e., employees whose positions don’t require a state teaching license); to provide a new supplement for Exceptional Children’s teachers; and to increase the seasonal stipend for athletic coaches.
[Story continues below chart on county-funded ABSS supplements.]
[ABSS also sought up to $11.1 million in additional county capital funding for routine building maintenance and big-ticket facility projects. The two boards could resume mediation on that aspect of the county budget for ABSS, but no date to do so had been announced by press time.]
ABSS officials previously told the newspaper that county-funded teacher supplements are tied to the teacher pay scale, which is set by the General Assembly. When the state increases teacher pay, the costs for county-funded supplements rise in tandem.
“When teachers are given a raise, they also receive an increase in their supplement,” ABSS chief communications officer Emily-Lynn Adkins told the newspaper this spring. “The percentage of the supplement doesn’t change. When the teacher supplement was frozen, it was tied to the 23-24 teacher pay scale.”
At the beginning of the previous, 2025-26 fiscal year, ABSS restored the increase in the teacher supplement that had been planned for 2024-25 but was frozen due to county budget constraints that year, Adkins said.
Other compensation for public school employees
The state’s base budget also includes state funding for one-time bonuses for most public school employees.
A report issued Tuesday, by the General Assembly’s Joint Conference on the Current Operations Appropriations Act of 2026, includes funding for one-time bonuses of $1,000 for principals earning more than $65,000 and one-time bonuses of $1,750 for principals earning less than $65,000 per year.
Central office employees earning $65,000 or less per year would receive nonrecurring state-funded bonuses of $1,750; those earning more than $65,000 per year would receive a one-time bonus of $1,000.
School nutrition staff and custodians would also receive state funding for a $1,750 bonus in 2026-27. This line item would be funded through leftover Opportunity Scholarship funds that state legislative leaders have said they intended to reinvest in traditional K-12 public schools, according to the joint conference report issued Tuesday.
State legislative leaders said late Wednesday afternoon that additional votes to finalize the budget, mainly a formality, are expected today, multiple news outlets reported.
