On Tuesday, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein signed the state budget into law, over 1,000 days since the last one passed. While NHCS Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes said the overall funds the school district is receiving are “still preliminary,” he believes NHCS might come up $2 million short, mainly due to covering local position salary increases and bonuses not provided by the legislature.
In essence, when New Hanover County passed its county and school district budgets — which were due by the end of June — they didn't know what the state was going to offer in terms of raises and bonuses, although they did their best to plan ahead of time. The state budget, now that it's passed, does provide raises and bonuses, but only for state-funded teachers and staff. To ensure that all employees are compensated equally, regardless of whether they're funded by federal, state, or local money, the district and county need to find additional funding to cover the shortfall — which is around $2 million.
However, Barnes said it’s likely they can cover most of that with district savings that have accrued over the last fiscal year.
Barnes said that most of these savings came from senior staff budgets that were frozen or decreased; however, until the actual checks get sent, he’s unsure how much of a deficit they will have.
Democratic member Dr. Tim Merrick told Barnes to explain to the public why it’s looking like they are short this $2 million.
“The local district is required to pick up the cost for a raise that's locally or federally paid with either federal or local money. [...] We need to make sure we finance everyone's raise equitably, but the state only funds a portion of that raise and of that bonus,” Barnes said.
The superintendent reiterated that he’s “confident” they’re going to be able to “bridge the gap” in the budget, but “until all the money comes down from the state, we're not sure. When the state says, ‘Hey, we're going to give a $1,750 bonus to everybody.’ They only pay for about 60% of the people that we have, so we have to be responsible for the rest.”
In general, Barnes said that teachers, instructional support employees, and assistant principals will receive, on average, salary increases of 8%. What he described as “brand new teachers” will get an average 17% increase, whereas more veteran educators will receive around a 5% bump in pay.
Other support staff not on the teacher pay schedule will receive the 3% state employee increase. One-time bonuses, depending on employee title, range from $500 to $1,750. Certified staff, such as teachers and assistant principals, with up to 16 years of experience will receive the $500. Over 16 years will be a $1,000 bonus. School nutrition and custodians will receive the $1,750 bonus.
Barnes said the state legislature has also mandated that school districts increase their retirement contributions (by about half a percentage point, from 25.5% to 26.1%), which includes hospitalization and Social Security.
In addition to discussing the start of state budget allocations, the board voted unanimously to increase fees for the public's use of NHCS facilities and school meal prices.
For the facilities, Assistant Superintendent Dr. Rob Morgan said of the on-average 10% plus increase in rentals: “The goal here is simply to offset the cost of what it takes to basically maintain the facilities. We're not looking to make a profit off of this. We're looking to just simply offset the cost of supplies and materials to keep our facilities clean, to keep them well stocked for when people do use them.”
As for the 25-cent increase in meal pricing, Morgan said this was to offset the cost of food and the increases in delivery pricing. Breakfast will go from $2.00 to $2.25; Lunch for preschool through 8th grade will go from $3.50 to $3.75. For high school students, lunch will increase from $3.75 to $4.00.
Board members also agreed to increase the stipends for various extra duties that educators perform. Democratic board member Judy Justice said, “It's not a whole lot of money, but it does help.”
Republicans Josie Barnhart and Melissa Mason were absent, but Republicans Pat Bradford and Chairman Pete Wildeboer and Democrats Merrick and Justice approved the increase in student technology fees; Libertarian member David Perry was the sole dissent. The $25 fee won’t be charged to students on free and reduced lunch. Barnes said the board would revisit the fee structure, which also includes athletic fees, in the next budget cycle.
Policy 4318: Use of Wireless Communications, which went back to committee in June to include a whistleblower provision, passed unanimously. The policy is meant to curtail students filming one another during the school day unless it’s for “good faith reporting of misconduct, or any other legally-protected reporting activity.” This policy still allows filming of sporting events and other events open to the public.
Barnes added of the policy, “Already in my conversation with the principals, they're not interested in disciplining students who are sharing information pursuant to an investigation. I will caution everyone, however, that sometimes a student will also capture that fight and post it on social media and send it to all their friends; that is not supporting the investigation, so there's some nuance there, but our principals are already well versed in that world.”
