Wake school board doesn’t want to raise employee dental costs. How far will they go?
Wake County teachers could get smaller local raises next school year to help avoid raising dental costs for all school district employees.
That’s one proposal being considered by school system administrators working on the 2025-2026 budget.
School administrators have proposed increasing employee dental costs by $28 a month, or $336 a year, to save $2.5 million next school year. But the school board talked Tuesday about cutting a few hundred dollars a year off the raises for teachers to cover the dental costs.
School leaders said the reduction in pay would be less than the increase in dental benefits.
“You won’t lose, but you won’t gain as much later,” Superintendent Robert Taylor told the board.
Discussion about the change in dental benefits has dominated much of the budget discussion over the past month.
Administrators identified $60 million in local funding needs that they said can’t be fully met by asking the Wake County Board of Commissioners for more money. Under a budget plan unveiled last month. Taylor coupled a request for $40.3 million more in local funding with $18.7 million in “strategic repurposing” cuts
How to avoid raising dental costs
Wake says it can save $2.5 million by eliminating employer contributions to employee dental insurance starting in January. This cut would impact 16,000 employees in the district’s dental plan.
Board members raised concerns that the $28 a month increase would be particularly hard on lower-paid employees.
“It will be harder for someone making under $40,000 to assume all of that,” said board chair Chris Heagarty.
During Tuesday’s budget discussion, the board talked about cutting in half the proposed 3% increase in the local salary supplement for teachers. Wake uses local funds to supplement the base salary provided by the state.
Providing a 1.5% increase in the local salary supplement would save $2.8 million. That would mean a teacher with no experience would get a $110 increase in the local salary supplement next school year instead of $220.
But some board members were leery of the message it would send to teachers by reducing the increase in the local salary supplement.
Alternative budget cuts will have an impact
On Tuesday, Neter presented different scenarios for raising dental benefit costs by using a sliding scale based on employee income. For instance, some scenarios have employees who make less than $40,000 a year being asked to pay $14 more month instead of the full $28.
But the sliding scale options won’t save as much money as asking everyone to pay $28 more per month.
Neter said he’ll present options on April 22 for not raising the dental costs by making other cuts in the budget. Neter did not say what the other cuts would be yet.
“We’re at the point no matter what we bring, it will impact something,” Neter told the board.
Is there ‘fluff’ in the budget?
School board member Toshiba Rice said they shouldn’t even be discussing raising dental costs for employees. She said administrators should be taking a deeper dive into the budget to find other cuts.
“Cut out the fluff,” Rice said. “Pay these people what they are worth, the best that we can with the money that we have. Cut out anything that’s not essential so that they can do the work in the classroom.”
Rice was echoed by board members Cheryl Caulfield and Wing Ng,
But Heagarty and board member Lynn Edmonds disagreed that there’s “fluff” in the $2 billion operating budget. Edmonds challenged her colleagues who say there’s “fluff” in the budget to find it.
“We can’t just assume that because the Central Office is big that there are some positions that are unneeded,” Heagarty said.
Speakers oppose budget cuts
During Tuesday’s public hearing on the budget, multiple speakers spoke against the cuts. In addition to raising dental costs, other cuts include reducing spending on maintenance and the number of assistant principals, counselors, social workers, substitute teachers and clerical staff.
“Less staff in school buildings is the opposite of what we need right now,” said Christina Cole, president of the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators,
Cole said the school district should ask for $60 million more from the county if that’s what it needs.
“No cuts,” Cole said. “Ask for it all and make adjustments later.”
Elizabeth Riley said the cuts will hurt families by causing social workers like herself to work with more than one school.
“I understand cuts must be made,” Riley said. “But it shouldn’t be at the expense of our students and families.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2025 at 6:36 PM with the headline "Wake school board doesn’t want to raise employee dental costs. How far will they go?."
