NEW HANOVER COUNTY — After leaders repeatedly described New Hanover County Schools’ current funding as “subsistence level,” the superintendent revealed the district currently has a $2.5-million deficit for the 2026-2027 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
At the district’s budget meeting last week, Superintendent Chris Barnes said the district needs $1.2 million for anticipated staff pay raises and $1.26 million for enhancements. He told the board it would need to collectively prioritize and streamline any enhancement requests, as it will most likely require a higher budget request to the county.
READ MORE: New Hanover County needs $4M to balance budget at current tax rate
Among the items he listed are increasing: teacher assistants, bus training stipends, ensuring there’s money for an assistant principal at each school, and increasing the supplement for the occupation therapists positions, which are hard to fill.
“These are choices we’re going to have to make, they are not mandates,” Barnes said, referring to the required number of staff positions per state guidelines.
Board member Josie Barnhart said she would like to see the county chip in 3% to the raises, rather than the calculated 2.33%, if the state was planning on doing 3%. This is important because any positions not covered by the state’s allotment formula has to come out of the county budget; thus, raises only apply to positions the state pays for and if the school district doesn’t match, it could create pay inequities for the same jobs.
Board Chair Pete Wildeboer pointed out the deficit almost matches the $2.3-million the district lost this fiscal year in Supplemental Funds for Teacher Compensation from the state. The district no longer qualified for the supplement after last year’s county-wide property revaluation, where values increased 67% on average.
“It seems like the state is saying you have enough money in the county, we shouldn’t give you this money — so then somebody’s got to put up that money besides us,” Wildeboer said.
Additionally, the New Hanover County Schools Finance, Capital and Bond Committee has put together a capital budget of $8 million using $4.17 million in state lottery funds and requesting $1 million from The New Hanover Community Endowment and $2.84 million from the county.
The board questioned how the superintendent’s conversations with the county had been and if they would be amenable to a budget increase.
“I think it’s totally appropriate to say to the county commissioners: ‘Hey, this is our gap. This is where we are,’” Barnes said. “But I also want to make sure that we can do everything we can to address that prior to asking for any additional funding. I do think it’s fair to say that they have increased our allotment every single year, while the state and the feds have not.”
During the NHCS budget session last Thursday, the county was having a meeting of its own, where Commissioner Stephanie Walker, a former school board member, echoed the same observation.
“I think we need to just understand that it’s not necessarily what we’re not doing, it’s what the state’s not doing,” Walker said.
North Carolina has repeatedly been ranked among the lowest funders of public schools nationwide when comparing the state’s ability to pay versus what it expends. When costs increase without state adjustments, this leaves counties left picking up the slack.
“Commissioner Walker, I agree with you, the state ought to be doing more,” Commissioner Dane Scalise said at the county’s first budget session. “I’m encouraged by the announcement from two days ago that the governor, the Senate president, speaker of the House have joined together to create a bipartisan committee … to look at the very issues that you highlighted.”
The commissioner is seeking the District 20 seat from retiring Ted Davis in this year’s election against Democratic challenger Tim Merrick, who is a current school board member in New Hanover County.
County staff indicated the district’s average daily membership rate — a per-pupil formula used to fund the district’s staff, services and supplies — would reach $4,000 per student. This would be an increase over last year’s $3,872, but not necessarily because the district is providing more money. Rather, the county is keeping the funding steady, despite the school district’s declining enrollment.
According to the data, New Hanover County Schools has lost 839 students over the last few years; that’s the population equivalent of a middle school. The data indicates the students aren’t leaving for charter or private school, but is due to a nationwide birth rate decline and also a migration of families with students out of the increasingly expensive New Hanover County.
“They don’t have fewer campuses because there are fewer students, ostensibly, the same number of teachers and administrators are there,” Coudriet said. “So their argument would be, those are the costs applied across the system, even though the students are going down.”
Based on 2022-2023 statewide data, the county ranks 10th among 100 counties in the state for per-pupil spending; the average amount is $2,226, though it doesn’t factor in counties’ ability to pay based on population and wealth.
To address declining enrollment, the school board decided at its meeting to look into a building sustainability study to explore ways to consolidate its overhead in the future.
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