“You all know the facts. There are fewer dollars in the public school system today than there’s ever been…”
– Gov. Beverly Perdue, March 19, 2012 press conference
We are still waiting for the NC Department of Public Instruction to report local, federal, and capital revenues/expenditures for the current school year, so I assume that Gov. Perdue is referencing total state expenditures on K-12 public schools.
According to NC DPI statistics, state public school appropriations for the current school year totaled $7.5 billion. A year before, state appropriations reached $7.15 billion. (See Highlights 2012, p. 2 below) In other words, there were fewer dollars in the public school system during the 2010-11 school year than the 2011-12 school year.