Governor Roy Cooper has spent nearly three decades in public service protecting families, keeping communities safe, and working to create jobs and improve schools. The son of a school teacher, he knows that education creates opportunity and he has worked throughout his career to strengthen our schools and create a sound foundation for our state’s children.
North Carolina succeeds by creating good-paying jobs that put more money in the pockets of hardworking North Carolinians. Under Governor Cooper’s leadership, North Carolina announced more than 21,000 new jobs in 2017, the most recruited by the state in any one year since 2006.
North Carolina is home to more than 800,000 small businesses and Governor Cooper is committed to helping them thrive. He has proposed help for small businesses with early-stage technology development and assistance to help small- and mid-sized communities transition into an innovation-based economy. In addition, he is pushing for expanded broadband access, which is key to small business success in rural areas.
Governor Cooper knows that we must focus on making North Carolina’s economy work for everyone, not just those at the top. His administration focuses on putting more money in the pockets of working families by strengthening existing companies, recruiting new businesses, and helping small businesses start up and grow.
For decades, North Carolina’s world-class community colleges and universities have had a reputation for excellence. Maintaining that reputation requires a continued investment and strong support for early childhood education, along with quality pre-K to K-12 schools.
Governor Cooper knows that North Carolina’s success depends on a robust public education system and he has proposed solutions to keep our public schools strong and make North Carolina a Top Ten Educated State by 2025.
A quality teacher in every classroom and a quality principal in every school make for great public schools – and our children deserve nothing less.
In his latest budget, Governor Cooper proposed an average 8% teacher pay raise this year, with every teacher receiving at least a 5% raise, to get North Carolina on track to reach the national average in teacher pay by 2021. This includes veteran teachers who were left behind in the legislature’s teacher pay plans. It’s been over 20 years since North Carolina passed a school construction bond, and the Governor’s proposed budget supported a $1.9 billion school construction bond to help ensure our children are learning in 21st century classrooms.
Further investing in North Carolina’s high-quality education system, Governor Cooper strongly advocates for more funding to bolster student support services at North Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
In recent years, too many tragedies have taken place at our nation’s schools. Governor Cooper is committed to keeping students and schools safe. He proposed $120 million to update school facilities, hire more nurses and mental health professionals in schools, and increase funding for school resource officers, along with common sense gun legislation.
Governor Cooper is working to help North Carolinians live healthier, more abundant and purposeful lives. His experience helping write and pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) showed the importance of getting coverage to keep families healthy. Governor Cooper is leading the charge to close the health care coverage gap by expanding access to Medicaid. This would cover over 500,000 North Carolinians, bring more than $4 billion into our economy, create thousands of health care jobs, and help control private insurance premiums, which are benefits a majority of other states are getting from expanding Medicaid.
Expanding access to health care would also combat the drug use crisis plaguing our communities. Governor Cooper put in place North Carolina’s first opioid action plan, served on the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, and signed the STOP Act to stop over prescription of highly addictive drugs.
Ensuring students have access to school nurses and counselors is critical to keeping North Carolina’s families healthy and safe. Governor Cooper’s budget proposed flexible funding for schools to hire at least 500 additional personnel to support youth mental health.
Whether it’s treating drug addiction or improving school safety, addressing mental health needs must be a top priority. Governor Cooper has also called for more resources to identify and treat mental illness and ensure North Carolinians can get the support they need.
Workforce development is a primary focus for Governor Cooper as he seeks to ensure more North Carolinians are ready for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
Governor Cooper announced NC Job Ready, his initiative to help people get good-paying jobs to support themselves and their families by investing in workforce development and job training.
Learn more about the Job Ready Plan
NC Job Ready is built on three core principles:
Protecting our state’s natural resources is critical for our families and our economy. North Carolina is a proud leader in renewable energy. We are second in the nation in solar energy, creating thousands of jobs and reducing harmful emissions. Governor Cooper supports continued investments in renewable energy that advance our economy and help our environment.
Governor Cooper is also leading the fight to protect North Carolina’s coast from offshore drilling. Offshore drilling threatens North Carolina’s $3 billion coastal tourism industry and could cost the commercial and recreational fishing communities hundreds of millions of dollars. Governor Cooper is working across party lines with other state and local leaders to stand up to the federal government and say, “not off our coast.”
Every family in North Carolina deserves access to clean drinking water and air. Governor Cooper is pushing to ensure the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Health and Human Services have the resources they need to keep our environment safe and hold polluters accountable.
Help can never arrive soon enough to those affected by disasters. And, unfortunately, North Carolina is no stranger to natural disasters. Whether the harm comes from tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires or other disasters, Governor Cooper is committed to ensuring that North Carolinians get the help they need after disaster strikes.
In 2016, Hurricane Matthew tore through the eastern part of our state, causing an estimated $4.8 billion in damage to North Carolina. But North Carolina is stronger than any storm, and Governor Cooper’s administration is working with federal, state and local partners to rebuild.
So far, more than $730 million has been spent on Hurricane Matthew recovery with more on the way to continue making families and communities whole. North Carolina has seen progress as families have returned home, roads and bridges have been repaired and businesses have reopened, but more work remains to rebuild resilient communities. To ensure North Carolina is prepared for future hurricanes, the Administration has focused on flood mapping key areas and moving and elevating homes that are at risk in future storms.
As our state and economy continue to grow, North Carolina’s families and businesses need roads, bridges, and technology infrastructure to keep thriving. Governor Cooper is working with state and local leaders to address our state’s infrastructure needs.
Governor Cooper and his Department of Transportation successfully passed the Build NC Bond Act with support from Democrats and Republicans. This law will help expedite critical highway projects, improving the everyday lives of people all over the state and encouraging businesses to grow and locate in North Carolina.
Governor Cooper also knows that access to broadband is a must for economic success in our rural communities and across the state. He proposed funding to improve internet access and service to households and businesses in underserved areas of North Carolina, including a grant program to help local governments partnering with private providers and utility cooperatives complete ‘last mile’ broadband projects.
Public safety is a core priority for state government, and Governor Cooper is committed to keeping families and communities safe.
Governor Cooper recognizes that state prisons can and should be made safer for those who work in them. Correctional officers do a difficult and demanding job, and Governor Cooper’s prison safety solutions include additional training, enhanced surveillance and updated technology and facilities. He has supported investments to increase compensation and retirement benefits for correctional officers that can help recruit and retain talent.
Throughout his career, Governor Cooper has championed commonsense efforts to help formerly incarcerated people become productive members of their communities. Governor Cooper tasked the Department of Public Safety with developing a Reentry Action Plan to comprehensively address re-entry issues and improve the transition for people returning from jail or prison.
Governor Cooper’s administration has focused on cross-cutting strategies to improve school safety across North Carolina. Experts from law enforcement, schools, juvenile justice, emergency fire and medical services and emergency managers have convened to ensure schools have the resources and support they need to prevent a tragedy or respond in a worst-case scenario.
North Carolina is the most military friendly state in the nation. Governor Cooper is proud that North Carolina has the third largest military presence in the country, as well as more than 720,000 veterans who call our state home.
Governor Cooper knows we owe these veterans, servicemembers and their families a debt of gratitude for sacrificing to protect our safety.
To help make North Carolina a welcoming place for servicemembers who are transitioning into civilian life, Governor Cooper established the Governor’s Working Group on Veterans Affairs, which focuses on job creation, workforce enrichment, health and wellness, legal and financial services and benefits for veterans.
North Carolina is making progress on reducing homelessness among veterans and, according to the latest information, veteran homelessness in North Carolina decreased by 14 percent from 2017 to 2018.
The foundation for future learning, health, and well-being is built during early childhood. Governor Cooper wants all North Carolina children to get off to a strong start in safe and nurturing families and communities, with access to high-quality opportunities to learn and thrive. we give children a fair chance for a strong foundation in their first years of life,
The NC Early Childhood Action Plan released on February 27, 2019 and created at Governor Cooper’s direction lays out a bold vision and roadmap for how the state can create better futures for our young children by 2025. Governor Cooper’s budget makes critical investments toward achieving these goals to ensure North Carolina’s children are healthy, safe and nurtured, and ready to succeed, including increased investment in Smart Start and NC Pre-K.
The North Carolina Entrepreneur Corps (NCEC) creates a new work-based learning opportunity for North Carolina’s college students to serve their state in a meaningful, high impact, and flexible way. This program leads to a more entrepreneurial state government, with rapid adoption of industry-leading technology and better interactions between North Carolinians and government services.
Students from across the state (both four-year and community college students) will work together to solve key challenges as identified by the North Carolina Department of Information and Technology (NCDIT). Students can apply as teams or as individuals. Individuals will be grouped together to work remotely as entrepreneurship teams. Each team will be assigned both an entrepreneurial mentor from the Governors Entrepreneurship Council and a technical mentor from NCDIT.
Over the semester (February 2020-April 2020) the students will go through the entrepreneurial process including idea generation, concept development, customer feedback, and creation of a final product. The new and innovative product can work toward improving services for citizens throughout the state. At the conclusion of the semester the teams will present their projects, and will meet and take pictures with the Governor. Applications are due January 15.