A bill has been filed in the North Carolina State Senate that would provide funds to pay athletic coaches at public schools using revenue from sports gambling.

Senate Bill 657, which is called “Keeping Our Coaches Act,” was filed in the Senate on Tuesday. It would allocate $11 million annually to the Department of Public Instruction to provide salary supplements to athletic coaches. The money would come from tax revenue from sports gambling, which became legal in North Carolina in 2024.

The goal of the bill is to ensure that every athletic coach at public schools in North Carolina receives a salary supplement of at least $3,000 for coaching.

In order to participate, school districts must report to the Department of Public Instruction the amount of non-state funds used for salary supplements for athletic coaches the previous school year. The deadline to report that information is Aug. 15 of each year. Failure to do so means the school district does not receive the additional funding.

The bill would not allow school districts to take the money from DPI and use it to replace local funding for athletic coaches. Instead, the money from the state would have to be used as an additional supplement for the coaches on top of what the local district already pays.

Any public school unit that uses the state money to replace local funds used to pay athletic coaches would not receive state funds the following year.

In order to be eligible for the additional supplement, coaches must be full-time employees at a public school unit and receive a salary supplement from local funds that is equal to or less than $3,000 per school year.

After salary supplements are distributed, if there are any funds remaining from the $11 million allocated to the effort, the bill would require the money be sent to the North Carolina Alliance of YMCAs to support youth sports.

If the bill, which has been sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators, becomes law, it would go into effect on July 1 and would apply to the 2025-2026 school year.

Sen. Sophia Chitlik (D-Durham) is the primary sponsor of the bill. It has also been sponsored by Sen. Val Applewhite (D-Cumberland), Sen. Todd Johnson (R-Union), and Sen. Eddie Settle (R-Surry).