The Union County Board of Education unanimously approved a $1,000 annual supplement for all certified instructional staff Wednesday, retroactive to July 1, 2025.

The action, adopted from a finance committee recommendation, passed 9-0 after board members and district staff outlined how state and local funding decisions narrowed a prior request for a larger supplement and after a lengthy public comment period in which parents, teachers and students urged greater pay and clearer coordination with county leaders.

Dr. Andrew G. Houlihan, superintendent of Union County Public Schools, told the board that school systems in North Carolina receive funding from three primary sources: the federal government, the state and local government, and stressed that boards of education do not have taxing authority. "Boards of education rely on all 3 agencies to provide funding and do not control how much funding they receive," Houlihan said.

Houlihan and staff described the district's May 2025 local funding request of $14,600,000, which included a $2,000 supplement proposal for teachers. The Board of County Commissioners approved $8,800,000 for the district in June 2025, the superintendent said, leaving a gap that the district characterized as one reason the full $2,000 supplement could not be implemented immediately.

"Each year, boards of education, when they vote to approve their budget, is a vote to approve a budget request. The keyword in this statement is the word request. It is not a promise," Houlihan said during his presentation.

The motion on the floor, moved by board member Mister Price, asked the board to "adopt the recommendation from the finance committee to provide a $1,000 annual supplement increase for all certified instructional staff retroactive to 07/01/2025." The motion was presented as having come from the finance committee and did not require a second.

CFO Miss McLamb answered board members' questions about how the district ranks on funding compared with other districts and said an additional $1,000 would move the district's local pay comparison substantially higher. On that point she cautioned that the estimate depended on what other districts ultimately do this year: "An additional thousand dollars would put us to number 18, based on the information that I have right now," McLamb said.

Board members expressed strong support for teachers and frustration with county-level funding decisions during discussion before the vote. One member said the decision by county commissioners to provide less than the requested local increase was "disgusting," and several members urged continued public advocacy at both the county and state levels.

After the board's vote, the meeting moved to a public comment period in which more than a dozen speakers — parents, current and former educators and students — urged higher local supplements and clearer coordination between the Board of Education and the Board of County Commissioners. Megan Weatherford, a parent and volunteer, said a recent teacher "sick out" had been "the canary in the coal mine" and called for the board to make teacher pay a top priority. Elena Brown, a parent and former UCPS teacher, asked the board to demand that county commissioners fund the full $2,000 increase and to press state legislators to pass the state budget.

Other public commenters raised related issues including staff shortages, unfilled positions, comparisons with neighboring counties' supplements, and concerns about private-school vouchers drawing public dollars away from district classrooms. In public comment, Kelly Sinicola asserted transparency concerns about communications between the two governing boards; Reagan Shaw criticized vouchers and called for public education advocacy.

The motion passed 9-0. The board recorded the outcome as approved; no recorded roll-call vote with individual board member names was read into the record in the transcript excerpt, but the chair announced the tally as "Motion passes 9 0."

Implementation details included the retroactive effective date of July 1, 2025. The board and district staff said the supplement depended on available local funding, state budget actions and future county allocations; they urged continued advocacy with county commissioners and state legislators.

The vote concluded the board's action on compensation during the meeting; later agenda items included the public comment period, approval of minutes and consent items and a brief superintendent report.