NC Policy Watch: “The plaintiffs in the state’s long-running school funding case were dealt a setback Tuesday when the NC Court of Appeals ruled the judge overseeing the case doesn’t have the authority to require the state to spend $1.7 billion on a public-school improvement plan.
Superior Court Judge David Lee had ordered State Treasurer Dale Folwell, a Republican, State Controller Linda Combs and state Budget Director Charles Perusse to release state money to fund the first two years of a state-wide school improvement plan that grew out of the decades old Leandro v. State of North Carolina. The State Supreme Court ruled in that case that the state was not meeting its constitutional obligation to provide children with sound basic education.
Tuesday’s Appeals Court ruling came on a 2-1 vote with Republican judges Chris Dillon and Jefferson Griffin agreeing that the state Constitution “permits” but does not require the General Assembly to “supplement” existing sources of school funding. Combs had asked the Court to dismiss the order.
Furthermore, the judges said Lee’s order is “constitutionally impermissible and beyond the power of the trial court.”
“We note that our Supreme Court has long held that, while our judicial branch has the authority to enter a money judgment against the State or another branch, it had no authority to order the appropriation of monies to satisfy any execution of that judgment,” the judges said.
Judge John Arrowood, a Democrat, wrote the dissent, arguing that a temporary stay of Lee’s order was appropriate because the Court was not under any “real time pressure.””