Pay Wake schools employees more, school board members say

Wake school employees should get bigger raises next year than currently scheduled, school board members said Tuesday.

The school board on Tuesday discussed for the first time Superintendent Robert Taylor’s proposed budget for next year, which calls for a $58.3 million increase in county funding but not higher employee pay. That makes his proposal different from the past two budgets.

School board members largely say they want to raise employee pay beyond what the General Assembly approved for next year. Taylor’s budget includes only funding for raises for locally funded employees to match what state-funded employees will earn next year. However, the board has been trying to stick to a five-year plan to raise employee pay gradually.

Board members said they were worried about staffing shortages affecting the quality of education for students. The school system has been short hundreds of teachers, instruction assistants and bus drivers at points during the past few school years.

“I’m just really worried that we’re not using more funds toward [raises],” Board Member Cheryl Caulfield said. “I don’t know where that would come from.”

Board members emphasized teachers’ impact on students and their futures.

“Who is going to take care of the children emotionally and academically if we don’t take care of our teachers?” asked Board Member Toshiba Rice.

The board also held a public hearing on the budget Tuesday night. A handful of people spoke on the budget, with most asking for more employee pay. Another suggested more funding for school safety and another suggested some administrative employees make too much money.

Most of Taylor’s proposed budget increase would maintain existing services, rather than create new ones. That’s because of the impending loss of millions of federal dollars, rising property costs, a new elementary school and the required local salary increases.

The school system’s budget, excluding building costs, is about $2.2 billion. Most of that — about $1.2 billion — comes from the state, but $644.3 million comes from the county. Taylor’s request would bump the county’s contribution up to $702.6 million.

The school board has asked for $50 million more each of the past two years, nearly all of which was granted by the Wake County commissioners.

The board plans to continue deliberating on the budget for several weeks before voting on one to send to county commissioners. The Wake County commissioners must approve the school system’s funding, which they typically do in June.

What’s in the budget

Taylor is recommending a $58.3 million budget increase from the county, but he’s divided his proposal into “must-do” items and “optional items.”

The school system lists more than $32 million in “must-do” funding projects:

• $9.9 million would go toward providing raises for locally funded employees that will match their salaries to state-funded employees, who are set to receive a raise from the General Assembly next year.
• $9 million would go toward charter schools in Wake County, which under state law are due a share of any local funding increase
• $4 million would go toward having a substitute teacher assigned to each school
• $3.8 million would go toward costs for the new elementary school opening next year in Holly Springs, Woods Creek Elementary
• $3.1 million would go toward paying teachers extra for having a Master’s degree — something the board agreed to do last year
• $2.3 million would go toward rising property costs, including $1.7 million in increased insurance premiums

The school system lists another $21.9 million in “optional” funding increases. That’s nearly all for maintaining certain employees whose positions have been funded by temporary federal dollars. That includes $13.8 million for more than 100 behavioral health support professionals, $3.6 million for more substitute teachers at each school and $2.5 million for supervision and snacks for students whose school buses are scheduled to be late.

Board Member Tyler Swanson suggested using the $2.5 million for supervision and spending it on bus driver pay, in the hopes that raised pay would increase bus driver retention and prevent the need to late routes.

Other board members liked the idea, although school system officials cautioned that if late buses persisted someone would still need to watch the kids.

Cost of living challenges

Providing a raise, while ideal, may not have the impact people hope on recruitment and retention, Board Member Monika Johnson-Hostler said.

“The number of teachers who don’t live in Wake County is astronomical,” and that’s part of a bigger problem, she said. “They can’t afford to live here, and there’s no increase that’s going to allow them [to] have stable housing. That is what we’re up against.”

Last week, the General Assembly’s House Select Committee on Education Reform, a bipartisan committee led by Republicans, issued a final report for the year finding that teacher pay hasn’t kept up with the cost of living in North Carolina. Teacher pay is mostly funded by the General Assembly. The committee also found that the workforce was changing and people are more drawn to other careers now.

School employees have asked the Wake school board for raises at the past two board meetings, citing ongoing teacher vacancies, the need for employees to have second jobs and difficulty paying bills.

Taylor Cordes, a former special education teacher who is now a long-term substitute teacher at an elementary school, said she thinks most of her co-workers have some sort of side gig. She recalled having an instructional assistant who worked full-time in her classroom and then worked a full-time job after school, resulting in him mostly only seeing his son on weekends.

“They’re struggling,” she said.

A small percentage of employee pay comes from county funding and past increases have amounted to hundreds more dollars annually for employees.

Caulfield, who supports increasing teacher pay, called the school board’s ongoing marginal increases in funding “Band-Aids” rather than meaningful change. She suggested the board have tough conversations about where programs can be cut.

“When you can’t afford something, you have to say, ‘You know what, we can’t do this anymore, we have to take this away,’” she said.

Taylor, who took over in October, said he’s evaluating “extra versus excess” in the school system’s budget. He supports providing “extra” programming and services that families have come to expect and want from schools. But he said the system needs to watch for “excess” costs.

Providing just a few hundred dollars more per year for school employees who receive a county supplement would cost tens of millions of dollars from the county. Raises of thousands of dollars would cost even more.

Meanwhile, the school system is poised to lose tens of millions of dollars funding employees next year, such as interventionists, school counselors, school psychologists and more. That’s because temporary federal pandemic relief dollars will sunset after Sept. 30.

The school system is not proposing keeping the interventionists or funding its new tutoring program — things leaders believe have helped the school system mostly rebound from pandemic learning loss. Leaders hope to use other federal funds to support administrative costs for the tutoring program. It will keep the interventionists it had before the pandemic relief dollars.

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