North Carolina House of Representatives District 11 candidate Clark Pope is with family in a campaign photo. | Clark Pope Campaign Facebook
North Carolina House of Representatives District 11 candidate Clark Pope is with family in a campaign photo. | Clark Pope Campaign Facebook
As the state looks at how to handle revenue shortfalls related to the economic crisis created by COVID-19-related restrictions, state House of Representatives candidate Clark Pope suggested a way to increase state workers' pay without impacting the budget.
Recent estimates by the legislative Fiscal Research Division and the North Carolina Office of State Budget predicted a revenue shortfall of approximately $4.9 billion following the shutdown of the economy earlier this year, The Center Square reported on June 30. Yet, some state employees and elected officials still received an automatic pay raise at the beginning of July.
The Center Square listed Gov. Roy Cooper, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and Attorney General Josh Stein among those who received a 2.5% pay raise. For Cooper, that would bring his yearly salary from $150,969 to $154,743.
Forest and Stein would join other high-ranking state officials at an annual salary of $136,669, which The Center Square reported is equates to more than $3,000 each from the previous year.
However, the pay raises also affect a variety of state employees, including public safety, corrections, highway patrol and police, The Center Square reported. For those state workers, Pope offers a different solution to increase how much they take home each pay period.
“Since they already have a pension system, I have proposed to increase state employee take-home pay by allowing them to voluntarily opt-out of contributing to social security from their state pay so long as they already qualify for SS benefits from private sector work history or a spouse's contributions,” Pope told the Raleigh Today. “This would increase their take-home at no cost to taxpayers and little or no effect on their lifetime SS benefit.”
Pope said he feels that the decision to permit pay raises at a time when the state doesn’t know how it will meet existing obligations demonstrates that Cooper isn’t taking fiscal responsibility seriously.
Pope is running as the Republican candidate to replace District 11 Rep. Allison Dahle (D-Raleigh).
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