Proposal includes $1.3M for new supplement for classified worker; also included: $2.5M boost in teacher, principal supplements
Alamance-Burlington school board members are considering asking Alamance County’s commissioners to fund a $1.3 million supplement – as part of the county budget request for ABSS for the upcoming fiscal year – for nearly 600 “classified” employees whose positions don’t require state licensure and are typically paid at an hourly rate.
The overall county budget request for ABSS for the 2025-26 fiscal year that begins July 1 could total $86.6 million, based on preliminary figures that have been presented to school board members during their past two meetings.
If approved by Alamance County’s commissioners later this spring, the $86.6 million in county funding for ABSS would represent an increase of 46.1 percent from the $59.3 million in county funding that the school system received for the current 2024-25 fiscal year.
The potential county budget request for ABSS has swelled over the two weeks since the school board’s initial discussion about the budget on February 11.
The dollar amounts that superintendent Dr. Aaron Fleming outlined earlier this month – which didn’t include a request for the county to fund a classified employee supplement – indicated that the county budget request could total between $80.5 million and $85.3 million, for an increase of between 35.8 percent and 43.9 percent above the county’s current funding levels for ABSS.
The revised $86.6 million potential county budget request for ABSS would include: $7.8 million in county funding for current expenses (day-to-day operations, including the classified supplement); and $19.5 million in county capital funding for building repairs, equipment, vehicles, and school safety.
By comparison, ABSS received: $55.4 million in county current expense funding; and $3.9 million in county capital funding for building repairs and maintenance, for a total of $59.3 million in county funding for ABSS for the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
[Story continues below preliminary budget outline.]
Alamance County’s commissioners have for years funded a supplement for teachers, principals, and assistant principals, which they receive as a percentage on top of the state-funded portion of their salaries. The percentage varies: for teachers, it’s calculated according to cumulative years of experience with ABSS; for principals and assistant principals, the supplement is also based on years of experience, as well as the grade span (i.e., elementary, middle, or high school) of the schools at which they’re employed, according to the school system’s human resources department.
For 2024-25, the teacher supplement averages $6,432 for each of 1,562 eligible ABSS teachers, according to the latest data from the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI). The salary supplement for each of 41 ABSS principals averages $17,202; and the supplement for each of 47 ABSS assistant principals averages $9,708, according to DPI.
The cost for the classified supplement, which those employees would receive in addition to their hourly wages, could total $1.3 million, based on figures that ABSS chief finance officer Tony Messer presented to the school board Monday night.
[Story continues below table of possible classified employee supplement structure.]
“Classified” public school employees include: instructional assistants; clerical workers and secretaries; technicians; bus drivers; cafeteria assistants; maintenance workers; mechanics; plumbers; carpenters; and electricians, according to DPI.
ABSS currently has a total of 790 classified employees; of those, 562 would be eligible to receive a supplement, other school officials told The Alamance News Tuesday.
Messer has also tacked on an additional 11 percent ($132,000) as a “charter school share,” which his figures show would bring the total cost for classified employee supplements to $1.3 million.
Asked why he’d included charter schools in the total cost for classified employee supplements, Messer told The Alamance News, “Anytime the county provides funding for local current expenses, any [charter schools] that Alamance County students attend get their share. The proposal includes the funds needed to support [an] ABSS classified employee supplement plus a portion of the funds that would be required to go to [charter schools].”
‘We had to do all the work’ to get funding for charter schools
“The state views those as students of Alamance-Burlington schools,” Messer told the board Monday night, referring to students who live in Alamance County but attend one of the county’s four charter schools, as well as charter schools elsewhere in the Piedmont-Triad region. “All the money flows through the school district, and the [charter] school gets their per-pupil share.
“I didn’t think it was fair we had to do all the work [to ask the county to provide per-pupil funding for charter schools], and the charter schools never had to do any of the work,” the CFO told the board during his budget presentation.
A handful of the state’s 115 traditional public school systems have opted in recent years to offer a county-funded supplement for classified employees, based on information cited for the school board Monday night.
However, few, if any, of the state’s 200-plus K-12 public charter schools currently operating in North Carolina offer a supplement to their classified employees, according to DPI.
Most classified employees in public schools earn between a minimum hourly rate of $15 (in keeping with the state’s minimum wage for full-time employees) and a maximum hourly rate of $52.91, depending upon the position and years of experience, as outlined in the annual statewide salary schedules for public school employees that were set by the General Assembly and implemented by DPI for the current 2024-25 fiscal year.
Messer told school board members Monday night that it would be easier to structure the classified employee supplement as a flat dollar amount, rather than the percentage that teachers receive as county-funded supplement.
Chatham County schools – where Messer was previously employed as the CFO before coming to ABSS in late October 2024 – structures its classified employee supplements as a flat rate “with a five-year band,” he told the board.
For example, a classified employee with zero to five years’ experience starts with a classified supplement of $800 to $900 per year, with the rate progressively increasing and topping out at about $1,700 per year for a classified school employee with up to 30 years’ experience, the CFO elaborated.
“I think something needs to be done with classified employees because they’re an absolute necessity in our schools; they need to be cared for,” said school board member Seneca Rogers.
School board members agreed by consensus that Messer should bring a fleshed-out proposal for a classified employee supplement to their next work session on March 11.
Fleming, who was absent Monday night due to sickness but participated in the discussion by phone, told the school board that the Alamance-Burlington Association of Educators (ABAE) had asked the administration to consider funding a supplement for classified employees. ABAE is the county chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators, which is part of the national teachers’ union known as the National Education Association.
Other N.C. school systems offer classified employee supplements
Some N.C. public school systems do offer a supplement as a benefit for classified employees, Fleming said Monday night, adding that some “have a very good supplement for classified staff.” He added that, if ABSS did move forward with asking the county commissioners to fund a classified supplement, he would recommend starting at 1 percent for classified employees with three to five years’ experience and progressively increasing the rate from there.
Eastern High School teacher Medora Burke-Scoll, who spoke on the county budget request Monday night, listed several public school systems that offer a supplement to their classified employees. They include: Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools; Chatham County schools; Mooresville city schools; Wake County public schools; and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools.
Aside from the classified employee supplement, the CFO described the other $6.5 million portion of the county current expense funding request as “an estimate” to cover what Messer characterized as “unfunded mandates” required at the state level. Those expenses in include: employer matching contributions for healthcare premiums and retirement; property and worker’s compensation insurance; utilities; and contracted maintenance and custodial services.
Approximately $2.5 million of the total request for $6.5 million in county current expense funding would be used to provide an increase in the existing county-funded supplement for teachers, principals, and assistant principals, based on figures that Messer presented Monday night.
About $1 million of the $6.5 million in county current expense funding would be used to provide matching raises for ABSS employees whose positions are funded by the county, commensurate with raises of between 3 and 4 percent that the General Assembly is contemplating for school employees whose salaries are funded by the state, according to Messer.
ABSS currently has 80 employees whose positions are funded by the county, based on information that the school system provided to the newspaper Tuesday afternoon.
Data from DPI, however, shows that the county funds 180 positions for ABSS for the current 2024-25 fiscal year. The Alamance News was unable to determine the reason for the discrepancy, or whether some of those positions are funded but currently vacant.
The annual cost for those county-funded employees totals approximately $5 million and includes: administrators; maintenance workers; ROTC teachers; pre-K teachers and assistants; and office workers, according to ABSS.
Another $643,500 (11 percent of the $6.5 million) is also included in the current expense funding request that would be distributed to charter schools that students from Alamance County attend.
Meanwhile, Messer told school board members Monday night that he intends to provide them with an “extremely detailed version” of the county funding proposal at their next meeting in two weeks.
Read the newspaper’s editorial page view on the ABSS’ current budget ideas: https://alamancenews.com/abss-budget-figures-eye-popping-astronomical-unbelievable-choose-your-adjective-and-totally-unreasonable/
