The Wake County school board on Tuesday approved a $2.3 billion operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year. To balance the budget, the system plans to make about $20 million in cuts—despite pushback from teachers, parents, and students. In a depressingly ironic twist, the budget vote fell on Teacher Appreciation Week.
Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) administrators say the cuts are necessary because ongoing federal funding for public education is uncertain and because of consistent underfunding at the state level. Wake County typically steps up to fill the school system’s budget gap, but this year’s economic turmoil leaves them with less latitude to do that.
A slew of WCPSS students, teachers, librarians, parents, and grandparents say WCPSS should start by asking Wake County for all the money it needs and negotiate from there. At Tuesday night’s meeting, they took turns standing up and asking the board members for a “no cuts” budget.
Three school board members—Cheryl Caulfield, Wing Ng, and newcomer Christina Gordon—voted not to approve the budget. The remaining six board members who voted for it said they weren’t happy about the cuts.
“I am agreeing to this budget proposal, but I do not support it,” board member Lynn Edmonds said after the vote. “So that we are all crystal clear about why we’re really in this mess … the General Assembly is not fulfilling their constitutional obligation to fully fund our schools.”
“We are in a very unique moment [for] education in this country where we have to make hard decisions,” said board member Lindsay Mahaffey. “We are here to make difficult decisions …. I’m here to pass a budget.”
Christina Cole, a WCPSS special education teacher and president of the North Carolina Association of Educators’ Wake County chapter, told the school board that their decision felt disrespectful to educators.
“We know our work is cut out for us at the General Assembly,” Cole said when it was her turn at the podium. “Why is our work cut out for us here, too?”
When WCPSS superintendent Robert Taylor presented his budget proposal to the school board in March, he explained that inflation is making everything more expensive right now. Plus, the school system is opening four new schools next year and is required by the state to give a portion of its budget to charter schools. To counterbalance those needs, Taylor proposed eliminating some administrative, nurse, and digital learning coordinator positions and reducing funding for school supplies.
The school board approved most of those proposed cuts last night but made a few changes. They rejected Taylor’s proposal to reduce spending on employee dental coverage, maintenance and operations, and Wake’s 43 low-performing Restart Schools. Instead, they voted to adjust building temperatures by one degree and reduce teachers’ local salary supplement—the pay bump they receive above their state-legislated pay bands—from 3 percent to 1.5 percent.
“There’s no way that I just feel justified allowing [teachers’] supplement to be sacrificed,” said Caulfield, one of the board members who voted against the budget.
Gordon, who also voted no, said she heard teachers’ and families’ messages loud and clear during public comments and couldn’t support a budget that removes administrative support staff from schools.
“Cutting these roles increases the strain on already stretched schools and sends the wrong message,” she said.
The school system’s budget, which is requesting a $40.3 million increase in local funding, now moves to the Wake County Board of Commissioners for approval. That board has its own cost-cutting considerations along similar lines of inflation and financial uncertainty, so the school budget won’t be finalized until later this summer.
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Chloe Courtney Bohl is a corps member for Report for America. Reach her at chloe@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.