Alamance-Burlington school system employees will have their county-funded supplements frozen at their 2023-24 pay rates, in an effort to erase a $2.4 million budget deficit that ABSS began the 2024-25 fiscal year with on July 1, the school system’s administration confirmed for school board members during a special-called work session Monday afternoon.
ABSS interim superintendent Dr. Bill Harrison told the board Monday afternoon that continuing to base the county-funded salary supplements on last year’s “salary scales” is estimated to save $750,000 in county current expense funding within the ABSS budget for 2024-25.
“Our dilemma is there’s nowhere else to go,” Harrison told the board. “This is at least $750,000.”
Harrison also briefed the board on several types of expenditures that have been shifted to other funding sources – such as capital funding for repairs and equipment, as well as state and federal sources – in order to close the $2.4 million deficit within the unassigned fund balance (“rainy-day savings”) in this year’s budget for ABSS.
As for freezing the teacher supplements, those are paid as a percentage, on top of employees’ state-funded salaries, which are based on salary scales that are established annually by the state Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
All North Carolina public school employees received an average annual salary increase of 4 percent for 2023 and 3 percent for 2024, based on the biennial state budget that the General Assembly passed in the fall of 2023.
While those raises won’t change, the 4 percent salary increase that went into effect July 1 would’ve increased the amount of county current expense funding in the ABSS budget that is designated for salary supplements, without continuing to base the supplements on the 2023-24 salary scales.
In addition to teachers, ABSS central office administrators (such as directors and assistant superintendents), also receive a county-funded supplement, as do ABSS principals and assistant principals.
Directors and administrators who’re based at the ABSS Central Office – such as assistant superintendents, the director of Child Nutrition, and others – receive a county-funded supplement ranging between 7 and 16 percent of their state-funded annual salaries.
Assistant principals receive a supplement ranging between 12 and 14 percent, depending upon consecutive years of experience with ABSS and whether they work for an elementary, or a middle or high school.
Principals receive a supplement ranging between 14 and 17 percent of their state-funded salaries, also depending upon consecutive years of experience with ABSS and the grade levels of the schools where they work. (Middle and high school administrators receive an additional ¼ percent and ½ percent bump, respectively, in the supplement rate, according to the ABSS human resources department.)
“It’s not that anybody will be losing, but they’re not getting [an increase in the supplement that reflects the state raises],” Harrison told the board.
The latest salary supplement data for all North Carolina public school systems in 2023-24 published by DPI reveals that ABSS had the 20th highest average teacher supplements statewide; the average supplement for ABSS, $6,568 per year, also ranked higher than the statewide average teacher supplement of $6,508 during the 2023-24 fiscal year (see accompanying chart).
ABSS also had the fifth-highest average teacher supplement among the 16 public school systems in the Piedmont-Triad region in 2023-24, according to DPI (see accompanying chart).
In an effort to further whittle the deficit, several central office positions have been eliminated, Harrison told the board Monday afternoon. It wasn’t disclosed, nor did any board members ask, how many positions have been cut, or whether they were vacant at the time of elimination.
At least one position at the Central Office, the deputy superintendent’s job, became vacant at the end of June and hasn’t been filled; nor is there an opening for a deputy superintendent currently being advertised.
ABSS chief academic officer Revonda Johnson, who has been assisting the finance department in the absence of a chief finance officer, told The Alamance News during a break in Monday’s work session that part of the reason for the $2.4 million deficit in unassigned fund balance was because of overstaffing (in particular, because ABSS employs more assistant principals than it is funded for by the state).
Johnson also told the newspaper that ABSS hadn’t fulfilled requirements necessary to receive state reimbursement of expenses for visiting international faculty hired through Participate Learning during the previous, 2023-24 fiscal year.
Meanwhile, other expenses in the 2024-25 budget that have since been shifted to other sources of funding include: $1.4 million for technology upgrades and $500,000 to continue operating Alamance Virtual School, which have been moved to the capital expense portion of the budget.
“The Virtual School funding [request within the county budget request for ABSS for 2024-25] was primarily for technology needs,” Harrison told the board Monday.
The recap of the budget for 2024-25 was presented to school board members for informational purposes only, and didn’t’ require a vote.
“I know this is not the preferred outcome for any of us on the board, but unfortunately, it’s the reality,” school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves said Monday.
Harrison said later in the same discussion that the school system’s administration will be meeting with Alamance County government officials “on a regular basis to share bills” and update the county on where ABSS stands financially.
School board members did vote 5-0, at the end of a subsequent discussion, to adopt a county current expense budget totaling $54.3 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year. [That current expense did not reflect the $3.9 million in county capital funding that the commissioners voted last month to allocate to ABSS for 2024-25.]
“I’m going to hold my nose and make a motion and vote for this thing,” school board member Dan Ingle said prior to the vote Monday afternoon. In addition to Ingle, voting to adopt the county current expense budget were: Ellington-Graves; vice chairman Donna Westbrooks; and school board members Seneca Rogers and Ryan Bowden, the latter of whom participated in the discussion and voted by phone.
Board members Chuck Marsh and Dr. Charles Parker were absent due to illness, Ellington-Graves said at the beginning of the work session.
