GREENVILLE, N.C – The state of North Carolina requires public school districts to pay annual “step raises” to most teachers, based on the number of years they have served, and whether they have national certification.

As is the case in most states, the annual raises have no connection to individual teacher performance. Great teachers who effectively instruct students are on the same pay scale as those who struggle in the classroom.

That means teaching staffs in North Carolina school districts must be judged as groups.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

Given that, do the teachers in every district deserve an across-the-board raise every year? That question can only be answered by taxpayers, when they consider the academic and financial situation in each individual school district.

EAGnews took a one-year snapshot of one large district, Pitt County schools.

The Pitt County district paid out an eye-catching $4.6 million in teacher step raises in the 2013-14 school year. Was it a worthwhile investment?

For a partial answer, we turned to the district’s 2012-13 report card, issued by the North Carolina Department of Education.

In the annual End-of-Grade tests in reading and math, taken by all North Carolina students in grades 3-8 Pitt County students did not perform as well as their peers across the state.

For instance, 37.1 percent of Pitt eighth-graders scored at or above grade level on the reading portion of the test, while the state average was 43.9 percent. In math, 37.5 percent of Pitt eighth-graders made the cut, compared to the state average of 42.3 percent.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

The same was true for reading and math in every grade level.

The results were similar in the science test taken exclusively by fifth- and eighth-graders. In Grade 5, 37.1 percent of Pitt students scored at least grade level, while the state average was 45.4 percent. In Grade 8, 43 percent of Pitt students made the cut, compared to the state average of 59.1 percent.

In course specific testing, 46.9 percent of Pitt students scored at or above grade level in English II, while the state average was 51.2 percent. The same was true in Math 1 (33.2 percent/36.3 percent) and Biology (41.2 percent/45.6 percent).

Pitt County seniors also fell below national and state averages in the critical reading and math sections of the SAT exam. They scored a cumulative 977, compared to an average of 1,001 for students across the state and 1,010 for students across the nation.

In the private sector, those results would probably not result in a general raise for the staff.

Even if the academic results were better, financial considerations should also be weighed.

Some quick research tells us that the Pitt County district has its share of money issues.

As recently as 2011, the district laid off more than 50 teacher assistants, according to media reports.

Last summer the district cut $2.7 million from its budget. That was done by leaving about 30 vacant teaching and teacher assistant positions open and cancelling plans to purchase $1.9 million worth of textbooks and school supplies, according to a news report.

Those are obviously cuts that negatively impacted students.

Should school districts that have been forced to cut budgets really be handing out millions of dollars in across-the-board raises?