What does it take to get charter-friendly provisions across the finish line and into state law? As our lobbyists can attest, securing a major legislative victory—as the Coalition did recently with measures in the new state budget—requires smart and sustained advocacy across multiple fronts.
Among other things, the $34.4 billion state budget appropriates millions in recovered funding for EC (Exceptional Children) at North Carolina charter schools. It also gives the state’s charter schools more time to submit their financial audits, ensuring timeline parity with district schools.
Both legislative wins are the direct result of Coalition advocacy at the General Assembly.
Here’s a recap from our Government Relations Team of their “behind the scenes” efforts on those two key measures:
- Coalition Counsel Matthew Tilley prepared budget provision language to recover the EC funding owed to public charter schools, and to amend audit deadlines for public charter schools to extend them to December 31, to match the deadlines that traditional public schools have.
- We took these proposed provisions (along with a few others that we will try again to get next year) to House and Senate Education Budget Chairs and Leadership Staff.
- The Budget Chairs sent the provisions to Legislative Bill Drafting to write them so that they could be added to appropriations legislation that was being prepared for legislative consideration in the 2026 Session.
- DPI and others objected to our provisions, so we responded to questions and requests for more information.
- Over the course of the 2026 Session, from April till the end of June, we kept in close contact with the Budget Chairs, with Senior Appropriations Chairs, and with House and Senate Leadership and Leadership Staff – mainly the Offices of the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore – to ensure that our top priorities, the EC funding and audit deadline revisions, got into the final appropriations package, S 257, 2026 Appropriations Act.
We’re very appreciative of the Coalition’s hardworking and effective lobbying team. In addition, we’re grateful to the lawmakers and legislative staff noted above, who helped ensure these provisions became law.
More details on our top budget priorities are below.
EC funding
The budget requires DPI to allocate $4.1 million to charter schools “that did not receive an additional pro rata allocation for each child attending the charter school who was a child with disabilities that enrolled in the school during the first 60 days of the 2025-2026 school year.”
DPI must develop a process “to determine the amount owed to each charter school” by October 1, 2026. In addition, the budget requires the State Board of Education to “adjust the amount of funding for children with disabilities each charter school receives during the fiscal year based on the headcount of children with disabilities required by 20 U.S.C. § 1412(a)(3).”
The intent of this provision is to prevent the Exceptional Children funding issue from recurring.
Financial audit deadlines for charter schools
In addition, the budget extends audit deadlines for charter schools and authorizes the Charter Schools Review Board to extend the due date for any audit.
Charter schools now have “a minimum of six months from the end date of the fiscal year to submit any required financial audits for that fiscal year, unless required earlier as part of a charter renewal application.”
View the Coalition’s 2026 Legislative and Policy Agenda.
Legislative language in quotes is taken directly from the 2026 Appropriations Act.
Shutterstock photo above.
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