NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A local school board still doesn’t have an approved budget five days before the deadline.
READ MORE: ‘Ask for what we need’: NHCS budget request surpasses $10 million
The New Hanover County Board of Education did not pass its FY25 budget at its Tuesday agenda review meeting after it was faced with some bad news: Around 120 positions still need to be cut and the district did not receive a Head Start grant for its pre-K program, meaning it will need to cut classrooms in its budget.
Because questions lingered and staff’s budget proposal didn’t get enough votes — board member Stephanie Kraybill was the only one willing to take up the vote — the board will now have an emergency meeting on Thursday to approve a balanced plan that satisfies its priorities.
The New Hanover County commissioners granted New Hanover County Schools roughly $9.5 million in added operating funding (no capital allocation was given) as part of its budget passed last week.
The school board asked for an additional $10.1 million to cover half of its shortfall, which resulted from expiring federal funds and declining enrollment. Strapped for cash a year before property revaluations, commissioners chose not to raise taxes nor pull from its revenue stabilization fund to boost line items.
On Tuesday, some school board members were still hopeful they could convince county commissioners to ease their plight with more money. Hugh McManus said he wouldn’t vote for a budget that cut positions, suggesting they go back to the commissioners.
“We’re not a poor county, and nothing’s more important than educating our students and keeping our teachers,” McManus said.
At a board meeting last week, the board’s legal counsel Jonathan Vogel did present an opportunity to get more from commissioners. He said the school board, if it believes its local funding is insufficient, has the right to call a joint meeting with commissioners to mediate the discrepancy. However, the school board had to do so by Monday, seven days after the county’s budget passage; it did not.
McManus noted the board requested two meetings with commissioners in the days after the county budget passed but were told “no.”
Some board members said they didn’t see their priorities, including EC and AIG teachers, reflected as they hoped in staff’s proposed budget and questions remained — particularly on how many positions would need to be cut on July 1.
“I feel like I’m in the middle of a nightmare,” board member Pat Bradford said. “I feel like I’m in the middle of a shell game. Everything keeps moving around and we’re just completely clueless.”
Superintendent Charles Foust, who admitted he had never overseen a budget passed so late, said they have been waiting on the board to pick a plan before it finalized position eliminations. He also noted the total people that will need to be let go changes almost every day.
With the funding it had at the beginning of the budget process, NHCS had to cut 279 employees, though 170 were part of Covid-19 relief dollars expiring this year; employees in these positions were told about the limited funding upon being hired.
The district has been relying on attrition — employees leaving naturally without the district filling their positions — to reach the 279 benchmark. That’s been slower than staff anticipated, with 156 positions still needing to be removed from the budget. Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Christopher Barnes said that number could be reduced to 120 upon shifting employees to currently vacant positions.
“I’ve been reluctant to do that at this point, simply because I was asked not to talk to school level people until the budget was passed,” Barnes said.
Contributing to the number of positions that need to be cut are some pre-K teachers. The board was informed it did not win the Head Start grant it applied for; last year, the district was informed the grant would become competitive.
Without the funding, the district’s pre-K classrooms will have to be reduced from 46 to 29 in the upcoming year. This results in a decrease from 764 students to 522 students, though returning children and those places in pre-K already will be prioritized.
Ultimately, Kraybill put forth a motion to pass the budget as presented, though no one supported the move. Instead the board has instructed district staff to identify any funding within the budget that could be redistributed to the workforce and come with additional information about the effects of the budget deficit.
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