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Wake County school employees will get raises beginning in their September paycheck after the school board approved cuts on Tuesday to balance the budget.
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The school board adopted $17.6 million in budget reductions to offset the cost of paying higher-than-anticipated state pay raises and bonuses for school employees. The new round of cuts include eliminating $1.9 million in local pay raises for teachers.
“There is no easy option whatsoever,” said board chair Tyler Swanson. “If there was an easy option, I think staff would have presented it, and we wouldn’t have this long of a discussion.”
The budget balancing allowed the district to approve new employee salary schedules. Salary increases and retroactive pay from July and August will be paid in September. One-time bonuses approved by the state will be paid in October.
The budget reductions were approved in a 7-2 vote. Cheryl Caulfield and Wing Ng were the dissenting votes, saying more should have been done to find alternative cuts.
Wake built its budget around the projection that state lawmakers would provide school employees with a 3% raise. State lawmakers approved an average 8% raise for teachers, a 3% raise for non-certified staff and one-time bonuses ranging from $500 to $1,750 for school employees.
The state is paying the raises and bonuses for state-funded employees. Wake’s extra costs come from how it matches the raises and bonuses for its locally funded staff. About 20% of Wake’s teachers and 26% of the district’s instructional support personnel such as counselors and social workers are locally funded.
Wake needed an additional $17.1 million in local funds — $13.7 million for the teacher raises and $3.4 million for the bonuses.
Wake also needed another $500,000 to cover higher than expected costs in retirement rate contributions and state health plan hospitalization contributions.
Earlier this month, school finance staff presented a list of $18.1 million in budget cuts to choose from. This gave the board the flexibility to not cut $500,000 from the list.
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The item that got the most attention was saving $1.9 million by eliminating a locally funded 1% salary supplement increase for teachers. Like many districts, Wake uses local dollars to supplement the base salary the state pays teachers.
The district’s decision will cost a beginning teacher $7.34 per month before taxes. But board members and administrators said all Wake teachers will get state raises this year.
On Tuesday, board members talked about an alternative of replacing the $1.9 million local salary supplement increase for all teachers with a targeted $500,000 plan to give local increases to the most senior teachers.
Under the $500,000 proposal, teachers with 26 or more years of experience would have gotten $193.50 more per year before taxes. But several board members said they’d rather use that $500,000 to avoid a proposed $3.22 per student cut in funding for schools that’s used for things such as school supplies.
Board member Jennifer Job said that the small increase of around $200 per year for veteran teachers wouldn’t be noticeable. She said that small pay increase could be offset by educators having to spend more out of their pockets due to the school cuts.
“We looked for ways that affect the classroom the least,” Job said.
Board member Chris Heagarty, who chairs the board’s budget committee, said he would have preferred to fund the increases for senior teachers. But Heagarty said he’s deferring to the wishes of the majority of the board.
“We have to adopt a balanced budget,” Heagarty said. “It might not be my balance or my priority, but I have to get us to where we can balance the budget and balance it on a schedule.”
The list of approved reductions made on Tuesday include:
Board members complained about having to make the cuts, accusing the state of not providing enough money to operate schools.
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“This whole thing gives us heartburn,” said board member Lynn Edmonds.