‘A bold ask.’ Wake school board asks county for $55.8 million budget increase.
A nearly $16 million gap exists between what the Wake County school board wants for its budget and what County Manager David Ellis plans to provide to schools.
The school board unanimously approved the 2023-24 budget plan Tuesday that asks the Wake County Board of Commissioners to increase local school funding by $55.8 million. But Ellis has recommended a $40 million increase, citing the limited amount of new revenue and the large number of requests for more funding.
School board members blamed state lawmakers for prompting them to seek such a large increase from the county. Quoting from Lizzo’s song “About Damn Time,” school board member Tyler Swanson said it’s “about damn time” that legislators provide enough money for schools.
“We’ve got to get the General Assembly to work with us and stop passing legislation that is smoke and mirrors against what the real issues are,” Swanson said. “And the real issues are recruiting and retaining our teachers, not culture wars, not whatever is happening in folks’ bedrooms and not the books.
“It is getting folks in the classroom to make sure that we have folks to teach what’s in the books and not the other stuff.”
Employee raises
Under the proposed $2.1 billion operating budget, the school board wants $650 million from commissioners. Increases in employee pay account for $25.8 million of the additional $55.8 million request.
“This is a bold ask, and our educators are worth it,” said school board member Tara Waters.
To explain why raises are needed, school leaders are pointing to high vacancy rates across the system, including 32.3% for bus drivers, 10.6% for cafeteria workers and 6% for instructional assistants.
In the proposed budget, school support staff would get a minimum $17 an hour salary, or a 4% increase, whichever is greater. This group includes people such as teacher assistants, cafeteria workers and safety assistants who ride with special-education students.
Raises would be provided to other pay grades to deal with “salary compression,” in which long-time staff may make as much as new workers.
Certified staff — such as teachers — would get a 4.5% increase in the local salary supplement that’s added to the base pay provided by the state.
“There is no dollar amount that we could put on our classified staff or our educators,” said school board member Monika Johnson-Hostler. “But indeed we can acknowledge the gross amount of work that they do and the grossly way that they are underpaid.”
The Wake County chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators has lobbied the school board to raise the minimum salary to $18.20 an hour. That would require adding $12 million more to the budget.
Where are the increases going?
In addition to providing raises, the district says the budget begins a two-year process of transitioning more than $32 million in one-time federal COVID aid into locally funded items.
Areas where the increase would go include:
▪ Shift $11.8 million off COVID aid into local dollars to continue to pay for maintenance and operations.
▪ A $5.2 million increase due to Wake matching estimated state increases in employee retirement and hospitalization costs.
▪ Transfer $3.9 million more to charter schools as part of their share of the local funding increase.
▪ Add $2 million to hire additional school counselors to help with student behavioral needs.
▪ Shift $865,000 off COVID aid into local dollars to continue paying instructional support technicians to help students use their district-provided computers.
How much higher will taxes increase?
The all-Democratic Board of Commissioners has been historically sympathetic to the school board’s request. Last year, commissioners increased school funding by $50 million.
“The county does take up a lot of the slack that the state doesn’t,” Johnson-Hostler said.
But this year’s budget picture could test the resolve of the commissioners. Fully funding the school board’s request would mean adding on to the county manager’s proposed 3.25-cent property tax-rate increase.
If approved, the manager’s budget would cost the owner of a $300,000 home $98 more in county property taxes a year, for a total of $1,956.
Commissioners will adopt the budget in June.
This story was originally published May 2, 2023 at 8:21 PM with the headline "‘A bold ask.’ Wake school board asks county for $55.8 million budget increase.."
