'Finally up against a wall': New Hanover school board continues to address budget shortfall

The New Hanover County school district is working on ways to dwindle down the 279 possible employee cuts that could be the result of a project budget shortfall.

School officials recently revealed that the district is facing a $20 million shortfall for the 2024-25 school year. During a recent budget work session, they talked more about why cuts will likely be needed and the impact on schools.

What positions could be affected?

There are 71 positions that were funded by ESSER COVID-19 relief funds, but that money is now running out and will be gone in September. The remaining 208 positions that could be facing cuts are a result of too high of a projected revenue from last year as well as a decrease in enrollment.

The ESSER-funded positions include guidance counselors, instructional coaches and social workers. Teachers and teaching assistants may also face cuts because of the shortage in local funds.

According to administrative staff, some positions were directly funded by ESSER funds and some positions were moved to being ESSER funded when local funds ran out.

There was some uncertainty whether employees knew about their positions being changed to ESSER funded, but Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Christopher Barnes said those who were hired initially by ESSER funds were aware that their positions could eventually go away.

The school board plans to eventually go to the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners to ask for local funds to help them keep some of these positions. But Superintendent Charles Foust said he has to present the commissioners with a balanced budget. To do that, the school district must make cuts.

More: Hundreds of New Hanover County school district employees at stake over budget shortfall

How did the budget get to where it is?

Not only is lack of sufficient state funding an issue, but federal funding is also expected to drop by a million dollars.

In total, the board will lose about $40 million in government funding for the next school year.

The loss of ESSER funding makes up $35 million of that amount.

An issue has also been the way that the district has balanced its budgets in past years.

Since 2019, the yearly budgets have been balanced using borrowed money from each year's fund balance, which is similar to a savings account. For each year that the board borrowed money from the fund balance, it ended up having to add the previous year's money plus more to the expenses.

Foust said this is a cycle that the school district cannot maintain.

"We've drug this can down the road for three years," Foust said. "Where would you get $20 million that's going to reoccur every single year?"

More: A revised New Hanover school policy restricts what teachers can talk about. Here's what it says.

What does the board have to say?

"We're finally up against a wall and we have to realize we're finally against the wall," said board member Pat Bradford.

Board member Stephanie Walker said that even though the financial situation is not where it needs to be, the district still needs the more than 200 positions that are facing cuts.

"When I say afford, I don't mean financially, but can we as a school district afford to cut, ESSER aside, cut over 200 positions in this district," Walker said. "That might be a rhetorical question, I don't think we can. I don't think we should."

Board chair Pete Wildeboer said one solution could be moving employees from non-student facing positions back to student-facing positions for the time being.

Board member Josie Barnhart echoed a point that Barnes made about possibly having employees teaching half of the day and then filling roles such as instructional coaching the other half of the day to make up for the loss of the ESSER-funded roles like instructional coaching.

What will the board do next?

The board plans to meet again in mid- to late March to discuss specific areas to cut.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: New Hanover County school board continues to address budget shortfall