Wake school board pushes for $56M more from county after county proposes $38M

The school board approved the request without opposition Tuesday night but not until after lengthy discussion about its limited inclusion of maintenance funding and lack of arts funding.

Multiple board members noted cuts in arts programming in some district middle schools.

Board Member Chris Heagarty said the board should keep the biggest, broadest needs of the school system in mind, especially in light of employee shortages that have hurt services and stressed existing employees.

“We’re not asking for the sky, we’re not asking for the moon, we’re presenting what is needed to keep going,” Heagarty said.

Board Member Roxie Cash said she was disappointed to not include more arts funding and more maintenance funding. The board continually creates multi-year plans to improve things, such as raising compensation for the lowest-paid workers or renovating more schools, Cash said. Then the board inevitably increases the length of the multi-year plans.

"We have put these things off for a very long time," Cash said.

Ellis's recommendation is $18 million short of what the school system plans to ask for.

Ellis said his proposal is based off of providing some compensation raises, increasing spending on maintenance, and providing more special education services. He intends to omit efforts to boost permanent staffing levels in child and nutrition services and make additional hires throughout human resources and technology.

Ellis’ proposal would provide pay increases for some employees, as the school district grapples with high vacancy rates among its lowest-paid employees and a diminished ability to recruit teachers away from other school systems. The school district employs nearly 20,000 full-time people.

Commissioners did not discuss the budget proposal but voted without opposition to accept the proposal and schedule public meetings to collect feedback on the proposal. Commissioners plan to vote June 6 on a final budget for the county.

Ellis is prioritizing making county employment and services stable and therefore better able to serve residents in one of the nation’s fastest-growing counties.

“We have to put our own oxygen mask on first,” Ellis said, referencing airline safety guidelines in the event of a loss of oxygen, in which people are told to put on their own oxygen masks before helping those who are struggling to, in an effort to protect more people.

“The point of this process is, you are no help to anyone if you cannot stabilize yourself,” Ellis said.

The county’s employee turnover rate is 16%, Ellis said, the highest in a decade. He’s proposing 3.1% pay raises and additional pay increases for employees with good performance reviews.

That would not apply to school system employees, though it would apply to county employees who work in schools, such as school nurses.

Ellis’s $1.7 billion budget adds about $130 million in new spending across county services, which include emergency management, public safety, health and human services and other operations.

To pay for it, Ellis is proposing a 1.5-cent tax increase for the county’s general fund.

Ellis’ proposed tax increase is the first proposed in three years. It would take the 60-cent property tax up to 61.5 cents.

For the owner of median-valued home, $337,000, their tax bill would rise from about $2,022 per year to $2,072.55, a 2.5% increase.

The tax increase would generate $29.2 million more per year for the county’s general fund.

Ellis is agreeing to fund $38 million of what the Wake school system is asking for, a small share of which would go to the county’s charter schools.

That would, in theory, fund compensation and benefit increases floated by the school system, facility maintenance, new employees for the four new schools opening this fall, and more help with special education services delivery. Without restrictions placed on it, the school system could spend the funding increase how it wishes to.

Ellis' proposal does not intend to fund pay increases for all employees. It’s not completely clear what would and would not be funded.

The school system has floated $35.2 million in total compensation increase, $8.3 million for benefits for locally funded employees, $6.4 million toward new school staffing, $3 million for maintenance and $1.5 million toward special education.

The school system also requested more than $14 million for school meal costs and staffing and additional funds for an assortment of other requests. At the same time, the school system floated reducing spending on a number of other items.

Ellis said he would not fund compensation increases for child nutrition staff and other workers, because those costs should be funded by the state.

He said he “looks forward to” the state General Assembly eventually “fulfilling its Constitutional obligation” to students.

Wake is already providing “well above what Wake County is statutorily required to fund” toward schools, Ellis said.

Legally, the county is not required to pay for anything in education beyond capital expenses. But North Carolina counties spend more than $3 billion annually on schools toward all kinds of things leaders think schools should have. Counties fund salaries and benefits for about 27,000 employees, including 6,000 teachers, and about $1 billion on services, supplies and equipment.

Wake school, county leaders call for minimum wage above $15 per hour

Wake County is spending $544.2 million of its own case this year on schools., part of a $1.57 billion county budget. It’s about a quarter of the school district’s $2.3 billion operating budget for this year.

The school system wants $600.2 million from the county this year, a $56 million increase. That would largely fund pay increases for existing staff and some new staff members for the four new schools set to open next year.

After Monday’s presentation, three people delivered public comments to commissioners, all regarding the budget proposal.

Kim Mackey, a Wake County Public School System teacher with children in the district, urged the county to spend more on schools, arguing that it spends less now than it used to, when adjusted for inflation.

Mackey agreed with Ellis that the state needs to spend more but contended that a stalemate leaves schools to fend for themselves.

She noted that her fourth-grade son has about 30 children in his class, because lower grade class size requirements have shuffled more teachers into those grades.

“I think there’s room to do more,” Mackey said.

Kristin Beller, president of the Wake County Association of Educators, said school employees are burned out from a year of staffing shortages and urged commissioners to do something to shore up staffing at schools.

“We have see the impact of staffing shortages and funding cuts on ours students,” Beller said. “We don’t ave to imagine what those shortages mean. We already know.”

Chad Stall, who frequently makes public comments at school board meetings, asked that commissioners consider the difference a higher property tax would make on county residents already dealing with economic changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated safety measures.

“The rents are increasing, all of the things are increasing,” Stall said.

The district is floating an operating budget of $2.1 billion for next year, a decrease largely because the school system is not counting one-time federal stimulus money. The school system’s budget for this year was originally less but increased once the federal dollars came in. It has not spent most of those $400 million, which last more than two more years, yet.

The state’s minimum wage increase is to $15 per hour next year and does not include increases that ensure people with more experience and paid more in light of the minimum wage increase.

The school system must also pay for the full minimum wage increase for locally employed workers, who are not paid by the state.

The school system is also floating a 2.5% local salary supplement increase for teachers, assistant principals and principals, costing nearly $4.9 million. For teachers, that would add between about $172 per year to $338 per year.

In earlier budget discussion, school system officials have noted a pending “fiscal cliff” from the federal stimulus funds running out.

The “fiscal cliff” wouldn’t happen next year but rather in the 2023-2024 school year, when the school system would begin asking the county to spend $8 million annually on dozens of new employees, such as social workers and health administrators. While federal stimulus funds pay for those positions now, those positions actually stem from the school board’s decision in 2018 to create a plan to improve and increase behavioral health supports at school.

While children’s mental health needs have increased significantly during the pandemic, those needs had already been rising — and fast — prior to the pandemic.