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In an era of tightening budgets, a new study contends the Wake County school system’s central office is understaffed and needs more employees.
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The Wake County school board’s budget and finance committee on Tuesday reviewed the results of an ongoing organizational study that said the district’s Central Services are “structurally under-resourced.” The district will use the findings to determine whether it can increase staffing even as it faces limits in funding if voters approve a state constitutional amendment capping local property taxes.
“The budgets will be tight given the fact if a constitutional amendment is passed, funding and systems and goods and services as we currently know it may not be the same,” said board chair Tyler Swanson.
Adding more central office staff could be a tough sell given that the school board has made $32 million in budget reductions since last year, including eliminating locally funded teacher pay raises this year.
The size of Wake’s central office has been a source of debate for years. Critics have accused North Carolina’s largest school district of being bloated, a position that school leaders have contested.
To try to answer critics, the district hired outside companies to conduct an organizational study and a compensation study of the district. Improve LLC is being paid $131,415 for an organizational study to answer the question, “Are WCPSS Central Services operations staffed at levels to support both efficiency and adequacy?”
Improve looked at Wake’s 2,899 Central Services employees, which includes administrators, bus drivers and maintenance workers. The district’s 17,186 other employees are based in schools, such as teachers.
Improve found that Wake spends less per student while having more students than staff than peer districts such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Dallas Independent School District in Texas, Fairfax County Schools in Virginia, Gwinnett County Schools in Georgia and Montgomery County Schools in Maryland.
“When we look at the number of students and the student operating costs, staff per teacher, everything is telling about how we are woefully underfunded,” said Superintendent Robert Taylor.
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Some in the community have said that Central Office staffing needs may be overstated, chief business officer David Neter told the board.
“I believe the results of the 3rd-party study — not a Wake County study — would indicate otherwise,” Neter said..
Improve looked at 32 staffing indicators. It found Wake was inadequate in 21 areas, lean in six and adequate in five. Improve didn’t find Wake was overstaffed in any area.
Examples of inadequate staffing levels included:
A related study on market compensation presented on Tuesday found that Wake was behind on paying employees in some areas, including principals and some administrative positions.
School board vice chair Sam Hershey was among the school leaders on Tuesday who blamed the district’s difficulties on not getting enough state funding.
“What the state is providing is not sufficient,” Hershey said. “That’s why we’ve had to go with local dollars in a lot of ways to supplement, and we are still in this position based on a third-party extensive study looking at different school systems throughout the country and organizations.
“This should open some eyes for hopefully not just our residents of Wake County but the state as well.”
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This story was originally published September 15, 2026 at 4:50 PM.