North Carolina’s new state budget is now law, setting higher pay for public school teachers and several categories of state public-safety employees.
Gov. Josh Stein signed Senate Bill 257 on July 7, making it Session Law 2026-41 and ending a stretch of more than two years without a full state budget.
For the 2026-27 school year, the state teacher salary schedule begins at $4,800 a month for a teacher with no credited experience and reaches $5,900 a month for teachers with 25 or more years. Because the standard teacher contract is 10 months, the entry step equals a $48,000 annual state base salary…