SCHOOLS; COMMUNITY NEWS
By Gregory DL Morris
Columnist/Correspondent
CHAPEL HILL–Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) have completed the latest phase of the central-office staff reconfiguration to meet a roughly $5 million budget deficit. There were no layoffs, and no teachers or in-school positions were affected. Some further reductions are expected to come through attrition. The measures became necessary as the student population declined by about 8%, reducing per-pupil funding.
The reduction in force affected was accomplished through several steps, Andy Jenks, chief communications officer at CHCCS, explained to TLR. All of the 24 central administration staff were offered transfers to open positions in schools and then the vacated administration positions were eliminated. That allowed those salaries to be taken out of the budget. https://chccs.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=647&meta_id=46084
Part of the CHCCS budget is funded by the state, and part is funded locally. In both cases, the funding is allocated per pupil, and the CHCCS student body has declined by 1,000 from pre-pandemic levels to 11,000 today.
The school board alerted the Orange County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) in 2021 and ’22 of looming budget shortfalls. “We made very public the story we were telling to the county commissioners,” said Jenks. “We have a good working relationship with the county commissioners, who generally support public education.”
When CHCCS alerted the county commissioners of the situation, the school system had accumulated a surplus of about $15 million. However, under county policy, CHCCS and Orange County Schools are limited to holding a 5.5% surplus.
In the event, CHCCS spent down its surplus. According to an August 22 e-mail message from George W. Griffin, board chair; Riza Jenkins, board vice chair; and Nyah D. Hamlett, superintendent, “We invested in our staff, which comprises approximately 85% of our total budget.”
In this case, staff includes teaching faculty, certified staff, and hourly rate employees such as maintenance personnel and bus drivers.
“We used our fund balance to raise our certified staff supplement rates [the local portion of the budget, in addition to the state-funded part] to be among the highest in North Carolina,” wrote the chairs and superintendent. “We also provided for an additional 2% increase in supplements for all certified staff working with exceptional children.
“Funds were also allocated to increase classified pay, providing an average 5.1% beyond the raises that were funded by North Carolina, positively affecting over 550 of our classified staff. We used it to raise bus driver pay to a minimum starting rate of $20/hour in the Spring of 2023 to combat critical shortages.”
In response to a TLR inquiry, Jamezetta Bedford, chair of the BOCC, noted the fund-balance policy and stressed that “the target fund balance is 5.5%. In 2021 or 2022, the CHCCS fund balance far exceeded this target.”
She detailed that “for the just ended 6/30/24 fiscal year the CHCCS special district tax was increased 1.5 cents which was estimated to provide additional $2.09 Million. The per pupil increase was $538.46 and was based on estimated budgeted student enrollment of 11,253 students = $6,059,290 additional new dollars.”
In addition to the new special district tax money and the increased per pupil funding for the 6/30/24 fiscal year budget, there is also a loss in prior year per pupil funding and special district tax funding for the estimated enrollment decrease of 189 students at $4,808 per pupil, for a total decrease of $908,712.
“Since the state typically adopts their budget much later than the county,” Bedford said, “there can be differences [between] the assumed state pay increase and the actual. In the last six years, the state increases were less than three years, the same for this year and last year, and higher three years ago. My point is that there are many factors involved in budgeting and then adjusting to actual financial results each year.”
Bedford added, “We do not tell the [two] school boards how to spend these county operating dollars because the school boards, along with the superintendents and cabinets, are closer to the needs and operations of each district to make those decisions. The fund balance policy does provide guidance there. CHCCS Board of Ed had already implemented a plan to make $2.4M of cuts and had told us of that many months ago.”
Gregory DL Morris is a business journalist and historian who reports regularly for TLR.
This reporter can be reached at Info@TheLocalReporter.press
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