Durham Public Schools hopes to stave off more school closures with Friday meeting

Update: The meeting started at 3 p.m., then quickly went into closed session, where they remain as of 4:30 p.m. About 100 members of the public and Superintendent Pascal Mubenga await them in the board room.

Earlier:

In a Friday afternoon meeting, the Durham Board of Education hopes to resolve salary issues that plunged public schools into chaos this month and stave off further school closures.

The issues stem from an accounting error that likely tallies in the tens of millions. Administration proposed balancing the budget by slashing raises promised to 1,300 school staff last year, prompting protests and strikes since mid-January.

Investigations are underway and school officials won’t answer questions about how it happened or when it was uncovered.

The Board of Education meets at 3 p.m. and will hear public comment before exploring options. Thursday afternoon, they added a closed session at the start of the meeting.

To understand what the school board is proposing, let’s go over the basics:

• Who pays North Carolina school employees? The state pays the base salary. All state employees received a 4% raise in this year. The county supplements the rest.
• What is a step? Pay is organized by grades and steps. Grades group employees according to their job type. Steps represent years of experience. DPS has traditionally awarded one step for each year of relevant experience, regardless where that experience was obtained.

• When were the salaries determined? The salary study was presented at the beginning of 2023, recommending raises across the board. In October, HR emailed staff their new salaries. In January, HR emailed revised salaries to about 1,300 classified staff.

• What are classified staff? There are a wide range of impacted classified staff, including cafeteria workers, interpreters, custodians, bus mechanics, groundskeepers, exceptional and children’s instructional assistants. Teachers and bus drivers are not affected.

• How were the revisions made? The district changed its longstanding policy of awarding steps for experience gained outside the public sector.

• A real world example: Picture a plumber who worked 10 years in DPS and 10 years at a private company. Last year, the plumber would have been on Step 19 and making $3,910 a month. In October, the plumber would have been promised a new monthly salary of $5,110. In January, the plumber would have learned that experience gained outside of DPS no longer counted, knocking them from Step 20 to Step 10 and dropping monthly pay to $4,404. (To calculate these figures, we used salary schedules posted online for a lead plumber, a Grade 64 employee.)

When consultant firm HIL Consultants presented a new salary schedule over a year ago that recommended significant raises for classified staff, HIL partner Hank Hurd said those salaries had been “frozen in time although the cost of living certainly wasn’t.”

“We’ve interviewed employee after employee that cannot afford to live in the district they’re working in,” Hurd said. “It’s reached a crisis state.”

“Classified employees have been left behind over the last, really, about 30 years,” added Frank Lopes Jr., also a partner at HIL.

The school district gets money from state, local and federal tax dollars.

The county allocated nearly $188 million for Durham Public Schools this school year, including $10.8 million to award raises for certified staff and classified staff, plus increases to retirement, health insurance and charter schools.

HIL, which has not returned calls from The News & Observer, presented the $10.8 million figure in its initial presentation — which was specific to classified staff — and called it a “quick estimate based on the information that we had.”

However, the district did not accept all of HIL’s recommendations and budget documents show only $4 million of the $10.8 million was budgeted to cover raises for classified staff.

The district has acknowledged accounting errors were made, but won’t answer questions about them, so it’s unclear what the true cost would have been.

School officials haven’t requested any additional money from the county since, according to Nida Allam, chair of the Board of Commissioners.

Instead, administration on Friday is presenting two options it can afford:

1. Use the salaries emailed to staff in January. This would result in 1,300 employees being paid significantly less than they were told in October, but at least 4% more than last school year.
2. Give an across-the-board 11% raise. This throws out the salary study and restores steps for classified staff. The pay bump would include 4% from the state and 7% locally funded. Some employees would receive less than they were told in October and January.

It’s unclear how much these options will cost. The News & Observer has requested details.

School board chair Bettina Umstead did not respond on Thursday.

“Each proposal has implications for our budget and will need to be considered carefully by our Board but will ensure that all classified employees receive a raise from their 2022-2023 salary,” Umstead said in a statement released Tuesday.

The options may not sit well with district employees.

“From the beginning, Durham school employees have asked for a seat at the table,” said Symone Kiddoo, president of the Durham Association of Educators. “However, the School Board and Administration continue to make decisions without worker voices at the table. Neither of the two options recommended to the school board will fully address the staffing crisis, but the process is even more concerning.”

This story was originally published February 1, 2024 at 12:59 PM.

Mary Helen Moore

The News & Observer

Mary Helen Moore covers Durham for The News & Observer. She grew up in Eastern North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill before spending several years working in newspapers in Florida. Outside of work, you might find her reading, fishing, baking, or going on walks (mainly to look at plants).