More proposed budget cuts are coming for the Wake County Public School System, as the school board faces a struggle widespread among North Carolina public school systems: drastically rising costs along with modest county revenue growth.
School system leaders characterize the cuts as necessary measures to balance the budget amid fast-rising costs. But dozens of educators rallied in red outside and inside of the school board Tuesday, calling for the opposite in the face of financial hardships: More funding, in particular to hire more special education professionals to relieve the hoardes of overworked ones.
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"We are all in the business of supporting children," said Jelice Norman, a special education teacher at Olive Chapel Elementary. "Support us, support them."
Earlier that afternoon, Superintendent Robert Taylor proposed $10.5 million in additional cuts to the school board on Tuesday, totaling nine proposals for the board to consider. That's on top of the handful proposed earlier this month, which totaled $5.2 million. Together, they represent less than 1% of the district's operating budget but trickle down into school operations.
Taylor said his budget focus is on "core operations." His proposal includes a request for county commissioners to provide $25 million more in new funding, but only to cover just a portion of the increased costs the district expects to incur next year in existing operations, including the cost of benefits, insurance, leases and raises for locally funded employees to match any state raises.
Taylor's proposed cuts would affect schools, though leaders are trying to impact classrooms, specifically, the least.
"They're all going to be difficult decisions," said Terri Kimzey, the district's senior director of budget.
After Tuesday's board meeting, Chairman Tyler Swanson didn't answer whether he would ask county commissioners for the funding increases the teachers were asking for. Instead, he noted that the county -- a critical partner in school funding -- was bringing in less new revenue than usual.
"The county has literally stepped in, year after year, to keep Wake County schools afloat," Swanson said. He thanked the county and taxpayers for filling in the gaps each year in what the school system says they need and what they expect to get in state funding. "But this is a cycle where the gap can no longer be filled."
Cutting assistant principals, specialty teacher formula
Taylor's proposal came after questions submitted by school board members, which included three questions about changing how the district funds assistant principals. The district noted that Wake funds more assistant principals using local dollars than Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Durham and Winston-Salem Forsyth school districts.
The proposed cuts include changing some funding formulas that would result in cutting funding for an assistant principal at 10 schools and two assistant principals at one school. The schools aren't named in the document. That would save about $1.2 million. It would set the maximum number of assistant principals to five at each high school, and some schools have more than that, based on the current funding formula.
School board Vice Chairman Sam Hershey said he worried about reducing assistant principals, given a principal's and an assistant principal's hefty duties to supervise activities outside of the normal school day.
The biggest change would be using $4 million of the district's dwindling savings to cover another year of employment for up to 39 special education teachers, who are currently funded by a federal grant that expires before the next school year.
Taylor also proposed cutting the allotment for high school specialty teachers, such as art teachers, resulting in $1.2 million in savings. That would not eliminate the specialty teachers but rather that one means of funding them.
The documents describe the impact as similar to reducing those teachers' hours at 33 high schools. Kimzey said the impact of the change likely won't cut any teacher positions. Rather, it would reduce the amount of funding a principal had to work with to build their schedules.
Here's what else the proposal includes:
- Moving $1 million from the utilities budget to cover the district's Community Schools program for one year
- Reduce extra funding for certain lower-performing schools in the state's Restart program by $500,000
- Remove some instructional support specialists hired in connecting with tutoring programs, saving $440,000
- Remove seven vacant positions in three offices: academic advancement, chief of staff and strategic planning, saving $836,000
- Reduce several district office budget line items, including contracted services, supplies, and subscriptions, saving $523,000
- Change the dental insurance plan to cover only two cleanings per year and give an in-network preference, saving $811,000
The dental plan currently covers four cleanings per person in a year.
A "Community School" serves a school's broader community, including by providing health and nutrition services for residents, who are often parents lacking better access to those things.
Because $5 million in changes would be done by using temporary funds, Kimzey noted the board will have to find a way to find $5 million more in 2027 to keep the budget balanced.
Some board members didn't like the idea of cutting the instructional support specialists or the extra funding for the Restart schools and plan to contemplate alternatives.
The district's operating budget is more than $2.2 billion, with about $740 million coming from Wake County.
The county's plans to make cuts are part of a struggle other school districts in North Carolina and beyond are having as costs go up and enrollment flattens or drops because of competition from public charter and private schools, declining immigration and declining birthrates. Because state and federal funding is largely funded by headcounts, making up most of North Carolina school districts' funding, declining enrollment spells lower revenues at the same time costs are going up, because of inflation and other price increases.
The financial constraints are leading to a situation in which the school system is looking to cut some operations from its budget while at the same time planning to increase the overall budget. In other words, cost increases for existing operations -- benefits, insurance, leases and other costs -- are expected to be so high that the school district can't afford them without major changes. Those two major changes would be receiving more county funding and cutting from the district's operations.
Cuts already proposed
Cuts proposed earlier this month wouldn't have a clear impact on classrooms.
The $5.2 million in cuts proposed on April 7 are:
- $2.5 million from transportation, based on spending patterns
- $2.2 million to cut 248 months of employment for elementary literacy coaches, or about 25 10-month teachers
- $500,000 from instructional services
- $50,000 to transition to a digital-only form of the parent/student handbook
Literacy coaches work directly with teachers to improve literacy instruction for students. The proposed change to them would concentrate those teachers are schools with the highest needs for them and eliminate them from schools with the lowest needs for them.
On Tuesday, Taylor presented further cuts to the district's budget, and the school board is discussing the proposal in the context of what they believe the county can afford to spend to raise school funding. The cuts were announced ahead of the board's final budget hearing, which will be held during the board's 5:30 p.m. regular meeting.
Taylor said he would not propose cuts to special education after first proposing more than $10 million in cuts to the programming in March. The school board said it would not accept recommendations to cut from special education.
On Tuesday, several educators speaking on the budget noted their schools have already planned staff cuts next year, including some cuts to special education staff.
Taylor noted that the district has not directed any special education cuts.
Principals often make decisions on their own to cut or add positions, based on what they believe the need is at their schools.
The school board plans to recommend a budget to county commissioners by May 15. Commissioners would approve county funding for the district, likely in June. The school board would then approve a final school district budget ahead of the July 1 start to the new fiscal year.
Taylor's proposed cuts include a $25 million requested increase in county funding to commissioners.
'Special education crisis'
Dozens of educators and others joined the Wake chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators ahead of Tuesday's meeting to illustrate the need for more special education resources in Wake County.
Employees from 24 schools calculated that their special education teams spent 3,346 hours working outside of their contracted hours during a single recent week.
Those hours represent the work of 83 full-time employees -- workers those schools don't have to help them, said Christina Cole, Wake NCAE's president. She implored board members to imagine how many extra work hours the special education teams at the district's 180 other schools would also report.
Bethany Pergerson, a specch therapist, recalled a co-workers ashamed to tell her she'd worked 70 hours the week before.
Pergerson recalled telling her, "'There are many people who should be ashamed you worked 70 hours last week but you are not one of them.'"
Sara Johnson, a special education teacher at Willow Spring High, said special education teachers' caseloads were too high and are costing the district.
"When caseloads are too high, errors increase," she said. In extreme cases, that could lead to a lawsuit, she said.
Taylor and school board members thanked the speakers and largely agreed with them.
Board Member Wing Ng urged people to keep speaking up and said he wouldn't be able to tolerate any sacrifices to academics or classrooms.
"The system is broken," Board Member Chris Heagarty said. The board and leadership have worked hard to make do, but "we cannot escape the fact that the system is broken."
The district should consider more fundamental changes, he said, and more conversations will need to be had exploring that.
Who funds schools
The county chips in the second-most funding for the Wake school system, and it's the funding source the school board has the most sway in lobbying for more of, partly because county funding is not driven by headcount.
The school system is primarily funded by the state, and that funding is generally driven by headcount. The federal government is the smallest source of funding, and it, like state funding, is also driven by headcount.
Part of the budget planning process for the school district includes estimating how much state funding it will receive. Taylor is planning for $44.3 million more from the state, including $34.7 million for salary increases for state-funded employees. Those increases would necessitate additional county spending to match those new salaries for any locally funded employees.
That touches on a tension between the school board and the General Assembly. The school board has asked for more state funding and contended that the locally funded positions are a result of a lack of investment. Lawmakers have argued that they have increased spending on schools generally.
Data shows county spending on schools has risen, too, but at a much faster rate statewide than state spending.
At the same time, lawmakers are discussing placing limits on counties' ability to raise property taxes that fund those school funding increases, as well as funding for public safety, health and other services. Wake County has pushed back on that effort to remove local control and hamper county finances. Some lawmakers have argued that property taxes have increased too much.
The General Assembly has not passed a comprehensive budget for the current fiscal year, but lawmakers return to Raleigh on Tuesday and negotiations are continuing on what a new state budget would look like. The House proposed more school funding, particularly in terms of teacher pay, while the Senate budget prioritizes further statewide income tax cuts that would reduce revenue. While school funding would increase overall, the Senate budget would provide smaller teacher pay raises.
Studies show lagging compensation, staffing
School district officials will also discuss two new studies related to pay and staffing -- issues the district isn't poised to tackle amid its budget constraints.
One will show that pay is not competitive with other schools or the private sector for several positions. The other will show the district has comparable staffing levels, and sometimes lower staffing levels, to other southern districts of a similar size.
Officials will present them during the board's work session, set to start at or before 4 p.m.
The district hasn't released the studies themselves, but presentations summarizing some elements are included in the board's agenda packet.
Researchers from Improve, a K-12 education consulting firm, chose to compare staffing levels among Wake County to Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Dallas, Fairfax County (Virginia), Gwinnett County (Georgia), and Montgomery County (Maryland). School districts outside of North Carolina are funded under different laws and tax structures.
One goal of the staffing study was to analyze the district's organizational structure and central office staffing levels. Any conclusions related to those are not included in Tuesday's presentation.
The presentation on the compensation study doesn't detail conclusions about teacher pay. It does note that some positions -- including custodians, data managers and instructional assistants -- are paid close to market value and are competitive for hiring.
It also notes that pay compression is a challenge for many roles, meaning that they are attractive at entry-level rates but not as those employees gain experience. Those people -- including many support professionals -- can eventually get paid much more in the private sector.
When compared to other similar school districts -- though the presentation doesn't note which ones -- Wake's principals and other school leadership are underpaid.