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On Wednesday, Nov. 20 a Republican led General Assembly completed an override of Governor Roy Cooper’s veto on legislation that provides billions in funding for school vouchers and requires local law enforcement agencies to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests. 

The bill, HB 10, will provide $2 billion in state funding over the next decade to the Opportunity Scholarship school voucher program. Thus expanding the program to include students from all income levels to receive taxpayer dollars to attend private schools across the state. It also requires sheriff’s offices to check the immigration status of detainees, withhold bonds and provide ICE with undocumented immigrants to comply with hold orders and offers protection from civil and criminal liability for these actions. 

Governor Cooper vetoed the bill on Sept. 20. 

“This bill takes public taxpayer dollars from the public schools and gives it to private school vouchers that will be used by wealthy families. Studies show that private school vouchers do not improve student performance, but we won’t know with North Carolina’s voucher scheme because it has the least accountability in the country. All public schools will be hurt by the legislature wasting its planned $4 billion of the public’s money over the next decade with rural public schools being hurt the worst. This money should be used to improve our public schools by raising teacher pay and investing in public school students. Therefore, I veto the bill,” the governor explained. 

The North Carolina House voted to override the bill on Nov. 19 with a 72-44 vote with three Democrats voting yes. The following day, the Senate voted 30-19 to override HB 10 with no Democrats voting in favor. 

Senator Bob Brinson (R-Craven, Beaufort, Lenoir) voted in favor of HB10 in September while filling a vacancy left by former Senator Jim Perry. Brinson was appointed on July 30, 2024. Brinson anticipated voting on HB10 as an appointed senator, because of the immense “energy behind it” from legislators and voters,  he said. 

In North Carolina, public schools are funded by the state which considers several factors including per-pupil spending. Detractors of school vouchers say that with less money going to public schools, there will be less money to spend on each student’s education and reduce an already limited amount of resources public schools need. 

The Daily News asked Brinson what alternative standards and/or criteria could the General Assembly use to fund public education rather than the existing per-pupil method if it cannot compete with Opportunity Scholarships. 

He has not considered new funding models for public education, but said a challenge in Craven County, where he lives, is the loss of public school students. In recent years, more retirees have moved to Craven County rather than families with school-aged children. 

“So it’s more of the fact that students aren’t there as opposed to the bumper sticker – hey they’re going to private schools or they’re going to charter schools or they’re being homeschooled. The fact is, there are less and less kids in those counties,” Brinson said, adding that the same could be said of Beaufort County. 

Brinson then addressed the new requirements of sheriff’s offices to comply with ICE detainee requests.

“Our sheriffs out in the east already comply with what we are asking them to do in HB10,” Brinson said, “if they come across someone that is here undocumented or illegal…and accused or convicted of a serious crime then they are (now) required to notify ICE to see if ICE has a detainer on them or wants a detainer on them.” 

Meaning, this requirement is not an “additional task,” Brinson explained. This is to ensure that sheriffs not previously notifying ICE do so in the future. 

“Some sheriffs were not notifying ICE. They were just dealing with the individual whether it be releasing them on bond or releasing them without bail and never notifying ICE…HB10 was to compel sheriffs that weren’t doing that to now do that,” Brinson said. 

Brinson said this measure mostly affects sheriff’s offices in large counties.