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No Laughing Matter
At a recent New Hanover County budget meeting, commissioners took a close look at the school district’s financial request for the upcoming year. And though Republican commissioners Dane Scalise and LeAnn Pierce have been the most vocal about cutting county spending for the upcoming year, Democratic Commissioner Rob Zapple also has some forceful critiques of the district’s ask — including the capital needs request.
School funding is a complicated mix of federal, state, and local funding – but building and maintaining facilities falls almost exclusively to the county. New Hanover County Schools is asking commissioners for roughly $19 million for work they want to undertake during the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
Zapple was skeptical.
“What I'm questioning is their ability – having the people there – to physically manage those jobs,” he said.
While Zapple acknowledged that this was something of “a rumor” that hadn’t come directly to the commissioners, he went into some detail about staffing changes for NHCS’s facilities management team. He noted the retirement of Eddie Anderson, the assistant superintendent in charge of facilities, and the departure of another staffer who he claimed left after not being offered Anderson’s position. He also said, “the three other or four of the project managers they had, who would be doing the work here, have all either retired or have moved on.”
In short, Zapple said he felt NHCS’s facilities team had an “empty bench” and was putting a lot on the one new hire who would be tasked with managing $19 million in projects in the coming year, plus $13 million worth of projects that are already funded but not yet completed, if NHCS got its desired budget.
It was somewhat surprising to hear Zapple get so granular – especially about staffing decisions, discussing current and former employees by name – but he was clearly frustrated with the school district, lamenting a “communication breakdown” between NHCS and the county, and what he saw as a lack of a clear long-range plan.
“This is not funny,” he said. “Does the superintendent have any response to these kinds of questions?”
County Manager Chris Coudriet shared Zapple’s concerns, at least to an extent, saying he didn’t believe the district could handle the workload for which they were requesting funding. His counteroffer was to suggest $6.5 million — spread out over three years.
Capital requests weren’t Zapple’s only issue; he also reiterated his longstanding frustrations with NHCS’s fund balance.
The district has long argued that it needs some of this cash on hand, for example, to keep checks clearing when state and federal funds lag behind real-time employee payroll. There are also lingering concerns, despite the county’s assurances, that another hurricane like Florence could again leave the district on the hook for repair bills while waiting for reimbursements from FEMA and other agencies — which has prompted NHCS to request a new agreement requiring the county to backstop repair or other emergency costs over $500,000. (County staff have already effectively rejected this request in their budget recommendations.)
A chunk of the district’s fund balance comes from the way the county delivers its per-student funding. If the district underestimates the total student population, it makes additional payments — but if it overestimates the number of students, the district keeps the difference. There’s no way to “claw back” that funding, as Zapple put it.
“If we're short, we make sure they got it. If we pay too much, they keep it and put it in their fund balance,” Zapple said. “Something doesn't seem quite fair there.”
Zapple has long pushed the schools to spend down its fund balance — cash that could be used for a rainy day event, among other things — and rely on the county. And he seemed vexed at the district's request to formalize the county’s promise to step in financially to help with an emergency.
“There's a lack of trust that we actually mean what we've been saying consistently, forever and ever: that we will be there. We will pay the bills,” Zapple said.
"The need is immediate"
Dr. Christopher Barnes, who was recently appointed as superintendent of New Hanover County Schools after serving as interim for over half a year, said he’d had meetings with Coudriet and Zapple recently to talk through some of their concerns.
He acknowledged NHCS had downsized its central office due to funding constraints, but pushed back on the idea that NHCS couldn’t handle the projects for which they’re requesting funding.
“As a district, we have gone through downsizing in our central office due to the funding constraints over the past few years. Our bench is not ‘empty’ per se, but we have had to do some restructuring due to the fact that many of our larger scale projects that were funded through the last bond have been completed,” Barnes told me.
“It is essential that as a district, we are good stewards of the money we receive from the federal government, the state, and the local government. We are prepared to scale with the number of projects that we can sustain,” Barnes said.
Democratic school board member Judy Justice was less measured. In response to a post from the local education advocacy Facebook group NHC Education Justice, Justice wrote, “Good grief, we have been asking for the money to maintain and repair for over a decade. We don't need Eddie [Anderson] or the ‘project managers,’ who have obviously completed their specialized projects, to do the well documented repairs. Rob [Zapple] is just making this stuff up as an excuse not to give us the much needed money.”
Barnes and Republican school board member Pat Bradford also noted that the $13 million in funding from last year — which Zapple had mentioned during the budget meeting — was for work that was primarily but not completely finished. At least half, if not more, of that is for the ongoing repairs at New Hanover High School. As Bradford noted, sometimes work is finished during the fiscal year, before June 30, but the payments aren’t processed until the new year.
This was also an issue during the 2024-2025 budget cycle. NHCS asked for $11 million in capital funding, but Coudriet recommended $0 — saying the district had enough unspent capital money to accomplish its goals for the year. Commissioners, including Zapple, agreed, urging NHCS to spend down the money already on hand. Some school board members protested, saying that money, while technically unspent, was already earmarked for specific projects, some largely underway. But then-superintendent Dr. Charles Foust, who produced the district’s budget request, didn’t put up much of a fight. A potential contributing factor: Foust, having earned the scorn of both board members and staff, came out quite badly in a May 2024 climate survey, and he was fired just two days into the new fiscal year.
It’s also worth noting that, while Zapple expressed frustration that NHCS hadn’t come to them with a multi-year Capital Improvement Plan, it’s not a total mystery what the schools need.
Back in early 2024, my colleague Rachel Keith covered a joint meeting between county commissioners and the school board, to get a briefing on the work of Cropper GIS, a consultant who looked at the district’s facility needs. All of the current commissioners were present (Democrat Stephanie Walker, now a commissioner, was a school board member at the time).
One implied takeaway: the neighborhood schools model has resegregated the district, leading to overcrowding in more affluent areas with more White students, and available space at schools in poorer areas with more Black students. The easy answer, on paper, is redistricting — but that’s a conversation that’s struggled to get political traction under both Democratic and Republican-led school boards.
More explicitly, consultant Matthew Cropper said redistricting alone couldn’t prevent overcrowding, and prepared a list of recommendations for upgrades, expansions, and new facilities. And, while some have pointed to declining birthrates as a way to quell concerns about facility needs, Cropper was clear, “this need is not for students that are coming, this is the need is for students that are here right now. So, the need is immediate in terms of space.”
Those needs included upward of $100 million for either a complete overhaul or replacement of New Hanover High School. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. When Scalise asked Anderson if it would cost “hundreds of millions of dollars,” Anderson agreed it would.
That led to a conversation about getting a school bond on the 2024 ballot but, given the relatively tight timeline, officials decided against it. The idea has been batted around this year for the 2026 ballot; not all commissioners are enthused about it, but I think a majority feel more comfortable putting nine-figure funding decisions to the public than they would if it were direct county spending.
This year’s budget request from NHCS includes roughly a half-million dollars for a district-wide facility study. As WHQR reported last year, this was last done prior to the pandemic, and found roughly $500 million in needs. So, while commissioners may not have an itemized plan for the next few years, they at least have some sense of the very daunting scale and scope of the situation.
Trust
Setting aside the perennial fights in Raleigh over teacher pay, the state’s low rankings for education spending (behind Mississippi, advocates like to point out), and the General Assembly’s antiquated allotment formula, decisions about facility funding, as I said, mostly stay closer to home. So the relationship between NHCS and the county is crucial.
It would be an oversimplification to say the schools don’t trust the county and the county doesn’t think the schools are being serious. But it’s not unfair, based on my experience, to say the relationship is fraught – or that trust is in shorter supply than you’d hope. I say that after watching the relationship between the county and the school district for nearly a decade, during which there have been some low points and some even lower points.
The district’s handling of the sexual abuse cases frustrated many commissioners, as did the school board’s decision to hand former superintendent Dr. Tim Markley a golden parachute. NHCS had already paid $20,000 for a third-party investigation of Markley – an investigation that was halted when he took a separation agreement – and some commissioners felt he could have been fired with cause (he had already been suspended without pay over an intimidation complaint). That, some commissioners told me, would have saved the taxpayers some money and maybe given them more clarity into mismanagement at NHCS.
More recently, commissioners were generally frustrated with the school board’s budgeting style — which was fractious, chaotic, and ultimately revealed they had inadequately prepared for the fiscal cliff at the end of Covid-relief funding (a looming problem former superintendent Foust, despite his other flaws, had been clear about).
In general, it’s long been my sense that commissioners have kept the majority of their fights private and done their public business with decorum. I’ve heard stories, even read a few texts, that let me know that commissioners are, of course, human – they know all the words the FCC won’t let me use on the radio, and they’ve used them in some heated conversations. But, after the embarrassing and expensive experiences with former commissioner Brian Berger, the board seemed to have recommitted itself to a baseline of civility.
Even Julia Olson-Boseman, whose professional and personal life went off the rails during the end of her term, did not drag county commissioner meetings to the kind of dysfunctional depths that the school board has managed to repeatedly reach.
All of this, it should be said, is irrespective of party, as the school board has been shouted into submission by crowds, and its own members, under Democratic and Republican leadership.
Of late, the school board has tried to do better, and they deserve credit for working through some very divisive issues without reverting to another Jerry Springer episode. But it will, I think, take some time before they earn the county’s – and the public’s — trust. And every relapse, like the unruly censure hearing for Democratic board member Tim Merrick, sets them back a bit.
Now, all of this is complicated by the fact that most of the board’s Republican majority won a decisive election running on culture war issues, not fiscal responsibility or long-range planning. On the back of unpopular Covid-related decisions about student masking and delayed school reopenings, the 2022 slate — Pete Wildeboer, Pat Bradford, Josie Barnhart, and Melissa Mason — also rode the wave of ‘parental involvement,’ backed by Moms for Liberty, among others. Their attacks on DEI and LGBTQ inclusion, bans on pro-Palestinian and Pride flags, and the three-ring circus of the Stamped hearings – these were all costly, divisive, and messy public processes. But they were also what a significant portion of voters asked for when they went to the polls in 2022. That’s what made it worthwhile, for example, to spend a considerable amount of time and energy to push through an anti-trans athlete policy when it appeared there were not any trans athletes to worry about. It didn’t matter if it was symbolic.
There are certainly some who feel like all that was worth it.
“Promises made, promises kept,” one conservative advocate posted on a recent story about scrapping DEI language from board policies, borrowing the Trump administration’s new slogan.
But, at the same time, the board — regardless of party affiliation — has a duty to serve the whole community, not just conservative voters from 2022. More to the point, they have a duty to the students. As a relatively apolitical friend told me recently, “I’m less worried about what books are being read to my kid if there are 35 students in there with him — that’s my first problem.”
I’m not saying the board’s conservative majority is hell-bent on ruling over the ashes of the district. But I think it is fair to say that while they went round after round with advocates and activists, federal money was drying up, facilities were falling apart, and some commissioners were getting frustrated.
Money Talks
To move forward, it seems like the county and the school district need to come to some understanding of how much capital work is feasible every year — and $6.5 million over three years probably won’t cut it. So, the first issue is trust.
But that’s not the only issue. There’s also just a staggering amount of facility funding needed by NHCS, even in an optimistic scenario where redistricting and declining birthrates take some pressure off the district’s overcrowded schools.
So how about a school bond? That could help, but it’s important to note it’s not a magic wand.
According to Chief Financial Officer Eric Credle, New Hanover County’s total debt capacity is projected to be around $94 million at the end of this financial year. In the coming fiscal years, as old debt is paid off, that capacity will increase – to $131 million by the end of 2026, and $175 million by the end of 2028.
Credle (who is always happy to discuss the intricacies of county finance) also noted that those numbers reflect the county’s current policy, limiting debts to $2,200 per capita. He said that, since that policy was established years ago, the county is currently getting financial advice on potentially updating it.
Even assuming the county maxed out its limit on a 2026 bond, $131 million would barely cover New Hanover High School, to say nothing of the numerous other projects that are on the table for the district.
And it’s not a foregone conclusion that a bond would pass. While conventional wisdom supports something of a ‘Blue Wave’ during the 2026 midterm, it’s hard to know what the economic situation will be — and how open people will be to a potential tax increase.
For some fiscal conservatives — who get irate when people suggest that bonds, like state or federal funding, are somehow manna from heaven — the county debt has been a white whale for years. Right now, there’s around $428 to $432 million in debt (depending on how you break it down). That includes $23.5 million still owed on the 2005 school bond and $104.3 million from the 2014 school bond.
This year, taxpayer money is going towards over $57 million in debt repayment (that’s interest and principal combined): about $20 million for public schools, $9.7 million for CFCC, $5.2 million for Project Grace, $3.5 million for the government center, and $2 million each for the airport expansion and parks and recreation. The current tax rate includes roughly two cents on every $100 of property value to pay debt service; based on my back-of-napkin math, for a $400,000 property, that’s about $80 per year.
(For what’s worth, the debt-to-population ratio in New Hanover County, as well as the tax rate, are considerably lower than in Durham and Guilford counties. You can find a full report on debt and tax rates from the North Carolina Treasurer’s Office here.)
There’s also the potential for a statewide bond. Democratic Governor Josh Stein has proposed a $4 billion state bond for school facilities that earmarks $61 million for New Hanover County. The state Senate’s version of the bill doesn’t include a bond, and the state House bill is still being hashed out. Politically, Stein’s budget is probably a less realistic version of what will finally be approved – but in the future, a state bond could provide some funding if Republicans, who control the General Assembly, prioritize it.
The elephant in the room during all of this conversation, of course, is the New Hanover Community Endowment (or, after their recent rebrand, just ‘The Endowment’) — which is already being tapped this year with an application to fund a $4 million pilot program to put a new position in each of the district’s 42 schools (the role would be flexible based on the needs). But, obviously, education advocates are looking at The Endowment, which is ramping up the capacity to issue at least $85 million in annual grants, for additional support. CEO Dan Winslow has told me, more than once, that The Endowment wants to be “last dollars” in on big projects — but that could still make a big difference.
I’ve suggested, hypothetically, to most of the county commissioners that it might be helpful to have someone from The Endowment – even Winslow himself — sit in on some of the local government meetings, where their name is invoked with increasing frequency. The Endowment might even serve as a useful bridge over the troubled waters between the county and NHCS (or that might be a bridge too far).
There’s plenty of room for discussion and debate about how to best approach, and fund, the district’s facilities needs. But it seems reasonable for education advocates to point to the significant wealth and resources in our county and the unmet needs of the schools, and ask for an explanation.
As someone said quite recently, “This is not funny.”
[Editor’s note: Commissioner Rob Zapple is a member of WHQR’s Board of Directors, which has no role in editorial decisions or news coverage.]
Letter to the Editor
We welcome letters to the editor’s desk on any topic. Our ideal length is around 400 words or less, but if they need to be a little longer, that’s fine. We reserve the right to edit or add context when necessary. We ask that submissions come with your name and where you live (no street address necessary, just your neighborhood, town, city, etc.). Criticisms are welcome, but we ask you to try to keep it civil.
Send your letter to BSchachtman@whqr.org — or by mail, if you're old school, to WHQR Public Media 254 N. Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401.
This edition’s letter comes from Tracey Laszloffy in Wilmington:
As a resident of Wilmington and a Duke Energy Progress customer, I am deeply concerned about Duke Energy’s reliance on dirty gas plants which creates volatile pricing that leads to increased costs to consumers, while at the same time polluting our environment and harming our health and wellbeing. There is overwhelming evidence of the toxic pollution emitted by gas-fired power plants. And of course, there is no way around the fact that the burning of fossil fuels is a major culprit in climate change. Given the level of pain that our state has endured because of increasingly common extreme weather disasters, it is disgraceful that Duke executives persist in doing “business as usual.”
Given that Duke operates as a regulated monopoly in most of the state, they have been allowed to increase their cut by prioritizing dirty gas that creates volatile pricing for consumers. Renewable options would create more cost-effective options for consumers while protecting our state’s environment and people. I would invite them to consider that California, the world’s 5th largest economy, has been predominately operating on wind power, hydropower, and solar power, backed by batteries, and they make it work. If Duke continues to invest in more expensive gas methods rather than cheaper and more reliable renewable energy, then no slick marketing campaigns or PR slogans will be able to distract us from knowing the truth about where their priorities lie and what they actually care about.
***
Much has been written about Duke Energy and the industrial capture of the agencies tasked with regulating the publicly traded company and making sure it lives up to its goals for reducing carbon emissions. There’s too much, by far, to write here, but we’re kicking around an in-depth piece on some of the history, so stay tuned on that front.
It is true that Duke has backed away from some of its more ambitious climate goals, removing climate-related language from its websites and earnings reports, Bloomberg reported earlier this year. The company is also exploring additional gas-powered plants. This could be financially advantageous in the short run, but also an attempt to 'read the room' based on the Trump administration's dismissive attitude toward climate change (including "reinvigorating America's beautiful clean coal industry," something Duke spent considerable resources divesting itself from).
There’s also the issue of nuclear power. Duke gets over a third of its energy production from nuclear power plants and has said net-zero climate goals can't be met without them. Nuclear energy has grown in popularity over the last decade, from about 43% approval at the end of the second Obama administration to 56% approval in 2024, according to the Pew Research Center. It's by no means uncontentious, but it remains an important part of the conversation about carbon-neutral energy production. (More to unpack on that front, as well.)
In the meantime, I do want to shout out some good reporting from our colleagues at Port City Daily, where Peter Castagno has dug into some of the incestuous staffing at regulatory agencies. For example, a judge recently appointed to the North Carolina Utilities Commission – which approves Duke’s rates – has a long and controversial history, “from handling Duke’s coal ash pollution a decade ago to striking down 1,4-dioxane regulation last year — and his spouse is chair of a lobby group funded by Duke,” Castagno reported last week. Port City Daily has also reported out other criticisms of both Duke and attempts to regulate the company’s activities, rates, and energy choices.
Underwriting a lot of the criticism of Duke is the fact that it is by and large a monopoly — but also a publicly traded company. So on the one hand, there’s no competition for people to switch to if Duke were to, hypothetically, fail to plan adequately for winter storms, offer lousy customer service, increase fees and rates without a good explanation to customers, or fink on commitments to fight global warming. On the other hand, while competing for customers isn’t a motive, profit is — because Duke has been paying dividends to shareholders for one year shy of a century.
I’ll also say that there’s a wide body of criticism and debate about what some call shareholder supremacy or shareholder primacy, dating back to the Michigan Supreme Court’s 1919 decision in Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. — which basically found that "a business corporation is organized and carried on primarily for the profit of the stockholders."
It's not that going public is necessarily evil but, certainly, shareholders present their own issues when we're talking about, say, Ford, Disney, or Apple. You could argue the need to reward shareholders sometimes keeps companies from taking risks or reinvesting in growth and development, reducing innovation and creativity.
But it's a different kind of problem when the company is also a public utility, whose goal is not to build a better, cooler mousetrap but to deliver a necessary service to the public. So, many would argue that squaring shareholder supremacy with the public good of a utility takes work, and regulation.
And you don't have to be a radical leftist to think that. Take it from the companies themselves: back in 2007, Duke Energy joined nine other major corporations to petition then-President George W. Bush for tighter regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Duke joined other companies like BP America, DuPont, and PG&E (another publicly traded utility), telling Bush, “We can and must take prompt action to establish a coordinated, economy-wide market-driven approach to climate protection.”
A friend of mine who covers climate change once half-jokingly referred to it as the “‘stop us or we’ll kill again’ letter.”
That’s a bit much — but it’s a reminder that these companies probably won’t regulate themselves.
