The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education and Superintendent Crystal Hill struggled Friday to reach an agreement on the district’s budget for the upcoming school year during a nearly five-hour meeting that grew heated at times.
After the board rejected Hill’s recommended budget in an 8-1 vote on April 28, Hill said Friday that the board had given her an impossible task by asking her to revise a $2.1 billion budget so quickly. She said the budget presented Friday contains options for reallocating resources for the board to consider, not her own recommendation.
“There’s no way that I could have come up with another recommendation in a week,” Hill said. “That’s not my leadership style. My leadership style is going to the people that are closest to the work and getting feedback. … So what you’re seeing today is absolutely not my recommendation.”
Board Chair Stephanie Sneed criticized Hill for not returning with concrete recommendations, following earlier discussions with the board Tuesday.
“I don’t know what we’re doing here,” Sneed said. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around what the purpose of the exercise is, because what I’m hearing is the superintendent’s recommendation is not going to change.”
The board faces a tight timeline. District leaders plan to receive a revised budget at 3 p.m. Monday, May 11, review it again with Hill Tuesday, May 12, and present it to the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday, May 13. The district must submit a final budget request to the county by Friday, May 15.
The school board went into closed session immediately after the meeting to discuss personnel matters and consult with its attorney.
Funding context
More than half of the district’s budget comes from the state, which funds base teacher salaries and other expenses based on student enrollment. CMS is facing declining enrollment, with about 139,000 students projected, down from roughly 147,000 a decade ago.
Nearly $700 million in Hill’s proposed budget would come from Mecklenburg County. The district has the most flexibility with local funding and is requesting about $31.1 million more than last year.
Hill and her staff outlined several relatively minor changes Friday, including increasing average class sizes in some middle and high schools by one student in order to redirect 95 teachers to higher-need schools and shifting $2.4 million from a school culture program to other social-emotional learning and family engagement initiatives. Hill emphasized she was not recommending those changes.
“What I am saying to you is Crystal Hill will do anything that the board asks me to do,” she said. “I cannot in good faith do anything that is going to put this district in a bad financial position. When we’re tinkering with staffing, it might go smooth sailing today, but you’re either going to pay now, or we’re going to pay later.”
The General Assembly has still not passed a state budget, which has left pay raises for teachers in limbo. Chief Financial Officer Kelly Kluttz warned that uncertainty at the state level could force additional cuts later, depending on how large state raises end up being.
The current CMS budget assumes a 3% increase in teachers’ base salary, which is set by the state and accounts for a bulk of a teacher’s pay. But if a state budget ends up passing a budget with 6%, 7% or even 8% raises — which Kluttz said could happen — then CMS would have to go back and close open positions to account for the increased local funding needed to match.
“Planning too conservatively will leave us unprepared if the state approves a higher increase,” Kluttz said. “Planning too aggressively could require decisions that are difficult to unwind if the increase does not materialize. There are risks in both.”
Board frustration
Several board members said they are frustrated with the district’s whole budget process, now six months in and with what they described as a lack of clear answers from staff.
“I feel a certain type of way,” board member Shamaiye Haynes said. “I feel like people have really played in my face for a few months about this.”
Speaking later directly to staff, Haynes said, “You definitely have the upper hand in terms of putting something up on a screen and allowing the public and the world to see how stupid we are. That is not welcomed in this process.”
Board member Charlitta Hatch also criticized the tone of the presentation.
“I think there is an undertone that this might be above board members’ understanding,” Hatch said. “That’s not the case. We understand what a budget is. We know what one-time funds are and what recurring funds are.”
The meeting ended without clarity on what specific changes Hill and her staff will present next week.
