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LOCAL FUNDS <br />The nearly century-old division of state and local responsibility <br />for school funding still shapes the way North Carolina pays for <br />public education today, with 63 percent of instructional <br />expenditures coming from the state and 98 percent of capital <br />expenses paid at the local level. However, the division has <br />eroded somewhat, with counties funding 16.3 percent of <br />principal and assistant principal positions, 6.1 percent of <br />teachers, 10.9 percent of teacher assistants, and 21.2 percent <br />of professional instructional support personnel; and with the <br />state paying 2 percent of capital expenses. <br />Considering local expenditures on programs and personnel in <br />2015-16, the ten counties that spent the most per student <br />averaged $3,103 per student compared to the ten that spent <br />the least, which averaged $739 per student. That represents a <br />gap of $2,364 — and 60 counties are below the state average <br />of $1,596. The bottom seven counties combined spend $290 <br />less than Orange County spends on its own. <br />One of the primary challenges from the five low-wealth <br />plaintiffs in the Leandro case dealt with the inequities between <br />varying levels of county support for schools. However, the <br />state Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that “the ‘equal opportuni- <br />ties’ clause of Article IX, Section 2(1) of the North Carolina <br />Constitution does not require substantially equal funding or <br />educational advantages in all school districts. Consequently, <br />the provisions of the current state system for funding schools <br />which require or allow counties to help finance their school <br />systems and result in unequal funding among the school <br />districts of the state do not violate constitutional principles.” <br /> 9 < <br /> LOCAL SCHOOL FUNDING: <br />IMPACTS ON SCHOOLS <br />AND CLASSROOMS <br />Differences in counties’ levels of investment in their <br />school systems translate into dramatically different <br />options at the school and classroom level. As an illus- <br />tration, at a statewide average class size of 20 stu- <br />dents per classroom, the ten counties that spend the <br />most per student would spend, on average, $62,054 <br />per classroom. By contrast, the ten counties that <br />spend the least per child would spend, on average, <br />$14,778 per classroom – a difference of $47,276 per <br />classroom. At the state’s average elementary school <br />size of 490 students, that translates to a difference <br />of $1,158,271 per elementary school. At the state’s <br />average high school size of 848, it translates to a <br />difference of $2,004,518 per high school. <br />FEDERAL FUNDS <br />Resources from the federal government accounted for 11 percent <br />of North Carolina public education spending on instructional <br />expenses in 2015-16, and totaled $1,440,865,436. Federal <br />resources are given to states in the form of direct grants, state <br />applications, state plans, or a combination of the three.