NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Three groups of employees in New Hanover County Schools are set to see changes to their compensation, yet the recent mold uncovering at Hoggard High School has delayed the district’s ability to use money it saved up for the pay increases.
At last week’s school board meeting, district staff unveiled its plans to adjust pay scales for its 16 occupational and physical therapists and around 190 teacher assistants who work with exceptional children. The goal of the increases is for the salaries to reflect the demands on these employees, which could be greater than their peers on the current salary scale.
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The board couldn’t fit these items in their budget this fiscal year, which began in July, and thus, asked the district to prioritize these two pay adjustments — along with an assistant principal in every school — for any additional money the district could shore up throughout the fiscal year.
The OT and PT positions will be moved to their own pay scale, away from a scale with other staff members. Their first pay adjustment will be in line with teacher increases this year, averaged at 8%. Moving forward, the positions would see a 1% increase annually.
As for EC teacher assistants, they would be split into two groups and moved to higher salary levels than their general education counterparts. Employees who work with exceptional children in general education settings would go from level 57 to 59, while those who work exclusively with exceptional children will go to a level 61.
Additionally, any substitute teacher assistants that are placed in an exceptional children position for the day would be given a $50 bonus.
Barnes told the board last week he had instructed central office staff to cut its spending in the spring, which resulted in the accumulation of $1.4 million to the district’s fund balance.
Now, up to a third of that amount will need to be spent remediating mold at Hoggard High School; the district closed several wings of the school and shifted students to online learning during the last week of September due to discovered mold. As reported by WHQR, the mold appears to have been caused or exacerbated by New Hanover County Schools district’s practice of “temperature setbacks” over the summer — running the HVAC at lower levels, allowing the buildings to be warmer during non-class hours to save money.
“I scrimped and saved every single dollar I could find, and brought us to a place where we’re actually putting money into our fund balance and now it’s coming back out again,” Barnes said at the meeting.
The superintendent said he would recommend the board hold off on voting for the pay changes until after the final bills came in for the remediation, estimated between $600,000 and $800,000.
Barnes said the hope would be to make the shift at winter break, but wanted to ensure the district still has the money to pay for the increases.
Though the total depends on the current staff’s experience, OT and PT changes would add around $78,000 in recurring spending, while the EC adjustment would cost around $325,000.
The district does have a fund balance of $2.1 million, before the additional $1.4 million was added to it. At the meeting, Barnes said he was hesitant to reduce the fund balance below the $2.1 million in the case the district needed the money to cover any future shortfalls. He mentioned the district may have to institute a hiring freeze later if it doesn’t have the financial cushion.
The school board members also questioned if they could ask the county commissioners to step in, noting the mold detection wasn’t a natural disaster but was still an unforeseen emergency nonetheless.
“When we passed the budget two years ago, when we passed the budget this time, the county said, ‘If you have an emergency, come and ask,’” board member Pat Bradford said at the meeting.
Barnes told the board he was cautious going back to the county, further elaborating to Port City Daily this week he didn’t think it would be fiscally responsible to do so. The superintendent has been deferential to the county during many funding conversations because the commissioners voted to provide more funding than the board requested in the 2026-2026 fiscal year, despite student enrollment declining in NHCS.
“I’ve always been a big believer in before you start telling your neighbor to mow their lawn, you need to mow your own,” Barnes told Port City Daily.
Still, both Bradford and board member Tim Merrick said they were “heartbroken” over not being able to advance the pay adjustments yet.
Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jennifer Geller told Port City Daily Monday the vacancy rates for OTs, PTs and EC teacher assistants were expected to increase in the near future.
The OT vacancy rate was expected to increase from 10% to 18% over the last three years, but in 2025-2026 the increase went to 40%; for PTs, the rate increased from 0% to 67%. Geller noted many people in these positions are retiring or planning to soon, necessitating a need for competitive pay in recruitment. She explained the district has already had to use contracted employees to cover vacancies they could not fill with recruitment.
Both positions will be moved to their own pay scale to mirror the one used for advanced teacher roles, which Geller said the district views as comparable. The state mandates the positions remain on a classified scale, while teachers are on a certified scale due to the certifications needed for the job.
“It is a little bit of a rub because our OT/PTs are also licensed but they’re sort of treated like they’re not,” Geller said. “But that’s not an us problem, that’s a state problem.”
The district sees a higher turnover rate for its EC teacher assistants due to the more intense demands of working with EC students.
“You might be in classrooms where you serve some of our most vulnerable or medically fragile children, where you might be assisting with feeding tubes or personal care and hygiene, or you might be dealing with children that might display behaviors that are more aggressive in nature,” Geller said. “So we wanted to make sure that we would recognize those differences.”
Board member Josie Barnhart said she preferred employees receive back pay at the beginning of the fiscal year, even if the pay adjustments aren’t officially made until next month or December.
Barnes told the board he would bring back several options after evaluating the cost damage associated with the mold remediation.
He also pointed out the current situation — having to put off new investments because of aging infrastructure — demonstrated the pitfalls to operating at “subsistence level.” Barnes has used this term frequently to describe the district’s budget that has little margin for excess or emergencies.
In conversation with Port City Daily, the superintendent also pointed to the $320.5-million bond on November’s ballot; projects include several replacements to older facilities, but also HVAC improvements across the district to improve school ventilation and temperature control.
“We brought one-and-a-half million into this budget to be able to use it on things that we know are good for kids and good for staff — we spent that money on remediating things that would not have happened had we had infrastructure in place that would account for it,” Barnes said. “So I think the message really is right now I’m spending money repairing broken systems that the bond will help us fix.”
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