NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A group of 19 people — consisting of New Hanover County Schools employees, board of education members, county commissioners and community members — met Tuesday to kick off conversations on the school district’s budget.
READ MORE: NHCS decides on budget, commissioner rebukes claim county refused to meet
For its first meeting since expanding its membership, the New Hanover County Schools Finance Committee mostly discussed foundational information on the district’s budget and funding mechanisms.
Board member Pat Bradford was positive about the meeting with Port City Daily after its conclusion.
“I could not be more pleased, it was an excellent and informative collaboration,” she said. “It met all my expectations.”
The committee was recently expanded at the behest of Bradford, committee chair, though committee member and Wilmington Chamber of Commerce CEO and President Natalie English said she suggested the idea based on a similar committee in Charlotte.
The first committee meeting consisted of:
- Chair Pat Bradford, NHCS board member
- Hugh McManus, NHCS board member (term expires in December)
- Stephanie Walker, NHCS board member (term expires in December)
- Bill Rivenbark, New Hanover County Commissioner (subbing in for Dane Scalise)
- Rob Zapple, New Hanover County Commissioner
- Christopher Barnes, NHCS interim superintendent
- Ashley Sutton, NHCS chief financial officer
- Joyce Bristow, NHCS budget supervisor
- Jared Worthington, NHCS executive director of school support
- Lisa Wurtzbacher, New Hanover County assistant county manager
- Eric Credle, New Hanover County chief financial officer
- Amanda Kostusiak, New Hanover County budget officer
- Charlene Thompson, treasurer at Ashley High School
- Hannah Moon, English teacher at Laney High School, Teacher of the Year
- Janna Lennon, principal at Mary C. Williams Elementary
- Natalie English, Wilmington Chamber of Commerce President and CEO
- Chris Riley, senior vice president at CAPTRUST Wealth Management
- John Hinnant, real estate broker
- Phillip Sutton, principal at New Hanover High School (absent from Tuesday’s meeting)
- Kim Clark, principal at Trask Middle School (absent from Tuesday’s meeting)
These members will act and vote on matters in an advisory capacity. The goal of the committee is to “improve communication and transparency of financial reporting, budget development and budget reporting.”
Last budget cycle was a doozy for both those inside and outside NHCS. Much of the meetings ended without clear direction, and when the board realized it needed to cut $20 million from the budget, it went back and forth on how to do so and how much it should ask for from county commissioners, who fund 30% of the school board budget. Facing 279 cuts, district rumors swirled that employees were being told they would be let go before the budget was finalized, claims leadership repeatedly had to deny. The board passed its budget mere days before the fiscal year was set to turnover.
Bradford reiterated the committee’s commitment to transparency at the beginning of Tuesday’s gathering. However, the meeting was not recorded nor streamed for public viewing, though in-person attendance was allowed.
Port City Daily asked Bradford if she planned to request future meetings be streamed; she told the decision was not up to her.
“I understand that to staff a meeting for livestream recording is a big deal and it takes that person away from what they normally would be doing for the district,” Bradford said. “Right now, I am told we don’t have the resources to allocate for every meeting.”
NHCS previously livestreamed every public meeting that occurred in the Board of Education Center, but is no longer doing so due to staffing changes, according to district spokesperson Anita Baggie. Going forward, only regular board meetings, agenda reviews and policy committee meetings will be streamed.
Most of the meeting was dedicated to breaking down the district’s $315-million operating budget for committee members. However, much of the discussion focused on two issues under the state’s prerogative — the state’s allotment formula and funding diverted to charter, private and home schools.
State funding, which accounts for 50% of the district’s budget, is based on average daily membership — the number of students enrolled in the second month of school. NHCS’ ADM this school year, including pre-K students, is 25,398. The ADM has decreased from last year, though that loss is attributed to the reduction in pre-K classrooms due to the loss of the Head Start grant. Projected ADM through the next decade show fluctuations, with the district having a net gain of 72 students by 2033.
These numbers are important because the state can decrease funding for a reduction in ADM; theoretically, the less students enrolled, the less money a district needs. However, the pur-pupil-funding the state provides doesn’t stay assigned to the student when it gets added into a big budget for instruction costs, making it hard to individualize costs.
Then take into account the district has a 13.9% exceptional children population — when the state caps funding at 13% — and the funding is stretched thinner.
The intention is that the money provided per student, $7,405 at the state level, follows a student if they transfer to another district or a charter school — the latter source receiving ire from board member McManus.
“They don’t have to meet the same standards,” he said, expressing, as he has done in the past, disdain for the fact the district must send money to charter schools that enroll would-be NHCS students.
New Hanover’s charter school population has been creeping up in recent years, up 113 from 2022.
English pushed back on McManus’ remark, saying she thought charter students do meet the same standards. She noted the district should emphasize its academic success as a competitive reason parents should choose public school.
The district has also lost more students to private schools with the expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship, or private school vouchers, to families of any income. In 2022, the district has 234 students participating; it has 603 in the current school year.
Interim Superintendent Barnes focused on issues he sees not with the per-pupil-allotment, but the state’s staffing formula as it comes to staffing. He highlighted three examples where the state doesn’t match up with actual needs of the district.
“This model hasn’t changed in 10 years,” he said, noting he once took a job in Tennessee in part to get out from under North Carolina’s funding qualms.
Barnes used three examples to make his point: assistant principals, enhancement teachers, and instructional support.
The state provides one assistant principal position per 985 students; none of NHCS’ elementary schools or middle schools would qualify for an assistant principal based on their enrollment alone. So these schools don’t have to share amongst them, the county fills in the gaps so each school can have at least one assistant principal, taking the district from the state allotted 24 positions to 56.
Enhancements teachers (art, music, P.E.) and instructional support (media specialists, guidance counselors, social workers) face a similar predicament.
Bradford said the funding needs are different than a decade ago, even four years ago before the Covid-19 pandemic, due to increased mental health challenges among today’s youth.
“We need more people to deal with less children,” Bradford said.
Commissioner Zapple chimed in and highlighted the commissioners’ action this past budget season to provide additional funding to keep the same number of school nurses and counselors in NHCS. He said the county would continue to support that effort.
Bradford pointed out that lobbying for change at the state level was part of NHCS’ legislative committee priorities. Barnes concluded the meeting by pointing out, though the disparities between state funding and district needs is helpful knowledge, the district could not rely on changes made in the General Assembly to assist in its budget-making.
The committee will meet again in the new year.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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