NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT, IN A FORCEFUL RULING, ORDERS $1 BILLION TO FUND LEANDRO SCHOOL FUNDING REFORMS
November 17, 2022
In a strongly worded opinion, North Carolina’s Supreme Court reinstated a trial judge’s November 2021 order to transfer approximately $1 billion in available revenue in the state budget to fund a comprehensive remedial plan in the long running Leandro school funding case.
The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms the inherent authority of the judiciary to compel state executive branch officials to take appropriate action to remedy a longstanding violation of students’ constitutional right to public education, including securing sufficient funds to implement needed reforms. The decision adds to similar precedents from other states upholding the court’s power to act when state legislatures and governors consistently fail to do so.
Background
Leandro v. State was filed in 1994 by low-property wealth, rural school districts against the State of North Carolina challenging its failure to adequately fund public education. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Branch of the State NAACP intervened in the case as plaintiffs.
In 2004, the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision that the State failure to provide adequate funding violated students’ rights to a constitutionally sound basic education and remanded the case to the trial court to oversee the next phase. Over the next fifteen years, the state failed to craft and implement an appropriate remedy, including reforms to its system of funding North Carolina public schools.
In 2019, under court supervision and with the guidance of an independent, court-appointed expert, the state devised a Comprehensive Remedial Plan (CRP), which included increasing prek-12 funding by approximately $8 billion over eight years. In January 2020, the court ordered the state to begin implementing the plan and to provide it with periodic status reports.
Despite a surplus of $8 billion and in just the first year of the plan, the state reported to the court that it failed to secure the resources necessary to implement the CRP. In November 2021, the trial court ordered the state controller and other state officials to transfer adequate funds to implement the next two years of the CRP (approximately $1.7 billion).
The controller appealed the trial court’s order, and the President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina Senate and the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, who had refused to participate in the case for decades, joined the appeal. The appeals court issued a writ of prohibition, ruling that the trial court did not have the authority to order the transfer of funds.
The Supreme Court Ruling
The North Carolina Supreme Court resoundingly rejected the court of appeals’ reasoning. The Court ruled that although the Legislature has the constitutional power to appropriate funds, it cannot exert this power in a way that violates its “sacred” constitutional duty to adequately fund schools.
The Court further asserted:
This Court has long recognized that our Constitution empowers the judicial branch with inherent authority to address constitutional violations through equitable remedies… For twenty-five years, the judiciary has deferred to the executive and legislative branches to implement a comprehensive solution to this ongoing constitutional violation. Today, that deference expires.
The opinion cited school funding precedent from other states including New Jersey, Kansas, and Washington, where courts ordered equitable remedies to force recalcitrant legislatures to comply with their constitutional obligations to adequately fund public schools.
The Supreme Court remanded the Leandro case to the trial court to recalculate the amounts necessary to implement years two and three of the CRP in light of recent state appropriations, reinstate the trial court’s order to transfer the funds, and retain jurisdiction to ensure state compliance.
The Court exhorted the state once and for all to end its recalcitrance and called upon the parties “to imagine a future in which all North Carolina children receive the opportunity to a sound basic education, then honor their constitutional oaths by working together to make that future real.”
The Plaintiff school districts are represented by Melanie Black Dubis and Scott E. Bayzle of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstsein and H. Lawrence Armstrong. The intervenor Charlotte Mecklenburg NAACP is represented by David Hinojosa of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, along with Christopher Brook of Patterson Harkavy, LLP, and Michael Robotti of Ballard Spahr, LLP.
Education Law Center and the Duke Children’s Law Clinic, representing 14 noted education and constitutional law scholars, the Center for Educational Equity, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed an amicus curiae, or “friend of the court,” brief urging the court to follow the precedent from other sister state courts upholding judicial branch authority to remedy violations of state constitutional rights to education.
Related Stories
STATE COURTS EMPOWERED TO REMEDY CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS OF THE RIGHT TO PUBLIC EDUCATION
NORTH CAROLINA COURT ORDERS STATE TO “SEEK AND SECURE” FUNDING TO REMEDY CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS
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Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Communications
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 240
Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Communications
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x240