Early in the meeting, Perry made a motion to officially adopt a 7.8% raise for board members — that's the average increase educators received this year.
When no one seconded his motion, Perry and Republican Chair Pete Wildeboer had this exchange:
David Perry: “Really? You don't want me to preamble my motion, and then I can't give you the reasons why you needed that?
Pete Wildeboer: Point of order. Point of order.
DP: No, sir, you are out of order.
PW: Mr. Perry, you're out of order.
DP: She [Bradford] gave a preamble to hers [fingerprinting policy] before she made her motion, but you gave me no opportunity to preamble.
PW: You're out of order, sir.
DP: She did not have the floor. I find myself excused for the evening, because I'm not going to be dealing with people who don't even follow their own rules.
Perry is referring to Republican Pat Bradford, who had an earlier motion to discuss the district’s plans on fingerprinting all NHCS employees. Bradford maintains that she could introduce (or 'preamble it,' as Perry said) her motion because another board member had seconded it.
The public record indicates that the board had already taken the appropriate steps to approve the raise.
The district sent budget resolutions in 2025 and 2026 to the New Hanover County Commission outlining the specific increases that the board would receive. Additionally, the board voted on a policy on April 1, 2025, to increase board stipends at about the same rate as teachers. At this meeting, Republican Josie Barnhart was the sole dissenting vote.
In a district memorandum dated the following day to the commissioners, Barnes and former Republican Board Chair Melissa Mason wrote, “The [BOE] requests that, beginning in fiscal year 2026-2027, its annual compensation increase align with the percentage raise provided to teachers by the State. The adjustment will be included as part of the Board’s annual budget request.”
While the district forecasted a 3% raise for teachers and staff, most educators received more from the General Assembly’s July budget. Barnes told WHQR that each year the budget is a complex, difficult process they have to move through; however, the district is taking steps to improve transparency.
While Perry maintains this was illegal because they hadn’t “explicitly done it”, both Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes and the other board members stood by the documentation that they informed the commissioners — and they had already voted on a policy that supports the 7.8% raise.
Perry did attempt to bring this up at last week’s agenda review, but it was never clearly added to the September 1 meeting agenda. At this meeting, his original intent was to look at dropping the 7.8% down to potentially 3%, as “some of our other non-teacher staff are only getting 3% raises, I think that's something that we should reconsider taking.”
During the conversation, Democrat Judy Justice said the raise is needed: “The fact is we can't get people, regular people, to run, because they can't afford to be holding this office. So we only get people that are in special positions — or like me, retired, or somebody with a husband that works to make money and stuff like that.”
Wildeboer agreed and said that for a long time the board didn’t get a raise at all. Merrick added it’s not that big of an increase as people think — and that members have to pay taxes on their mileage/travel reimbursements.
Barnhart at one point chimed in to say the conversation was “inappropriate,” at the August agenda review meeting, and Wildeboer decided that her point was “not well taken.” Then the board moved on to the next agenda item.
With this approved increase, each school board member receives an annual $16,732 salary — as chair, Wildeboer gets $2,592 more.
For comparison, as of last year, the City of Wilmington Council gets $21,642 each, with Mayor Bill Saffo receiving $26,486. For this budget cycle, the New Hanover County commissioners get $40,547 each; as chair, Republican LeAnn Pierce receives $50,684.
Board passes policies on public records, audio/video use in schools, bidders/businesses
The board also passed four policies — one regarding charging fees for public records and another on employees using audio and video in schools. The other two concerned the way the district contracts with businesses and bidders.
Board attorney Norwood Blanchard told WHQR last week that he thought the board would send the public records policy back for edits; however, the board passed it 5-1, with Barnhart dissenting, mainly over charging for records for more than two hours of extensive clerical and IT work. The threshold for charging was previously four hours.
However, the board amended it to remove a section allowing the district to charge for redacting confidential information from records. Blanchard said this was in earlier versions of the policy, and that he would “take the blame for that one,” as state law stipulates that “separating confidential information is a cost that has to be borne by the agency.” However, he said that the district can charge for “extensive clerical, IT staff time” to procure records.
Blanchard reiterated that most of the legal redaction work “isn't for public record requests; it's for divorce cases. [...] Parents are asking for the educational files of their child, and a lot of times there are other children's records commingled with it. So I'd say four out of five of the ones that I end up working on end up being for court matters, not for public records requests.”
The board landed on charging about $85 an hour for two hours, but they did not explain how they arrived at that rate. Most members added that this was about being able to charge a commercial entity for records, more so than the public or the media. However, Blanchard said North Carolina differs from federal law in that requesters aren’t identified as commercial versus non-commercial.
The policy on how employees use audio and video in the school passed 4-2, with Bradford and Barnhart dissenting. Barnhart said she thought the policy could be “misused.” The policy requires permission and a "legitimate educational purpose" for some recording situations. The policy also prohibits secretly recording; however, it includes a whistleblower clause allowing staff to film or audio-record illicit or illegal behavior.
The changes to policies surrounding businesses and bidders took out references like ‘minority-owned’, ‘women-owned’, and ‘historically underutilized’. Most of these references changed to 'small businesses'.
Even though they passed unanimously, Merrick took issue with removing these phrases; however, Barnhart said the board isn’t "remov[ing] any of the businesses [Merrick] just mentioned” and that the new policy isn’t meant to be discriminatory. Bradford said that when she owned a business, establishing as ‘women-owned’ did “nothing for [her]”, but “small business covered what I needed.”
Plans surrounding all employees to be fingerprinted to come
The board pushed the policy of fingerprinting all employees back another month. Barnes will first come up with a plan next month for when to do this. The cost is upwards of $48 per employee, and members were citing that two out of three employees had not yet been fingerprinted. The ballpark price would be around $100,000. Most newer employees are currently being fingerprinted; the issue is with veterans.
Barnes added, “I want to make sure our employees are aware that this is not an issue of trust,” but rather about standardizing the process.
The superintendent also announced that the next public town hall will be on October 20. They will discuss the $320.5 million school bond on the November ballot.
