BY NORTH CAROLINA Spectrum NewsPUBLISHED 12:00 PM ET AUG. 07, 2023
BAILEY, N.C. – August is the back-to-school month for many students, teachers and staff across North Carolina.
As schools prepare, they’re doing so without one important piece of information – their budget.
Republican leaders in the State Legislature are still negotiating a final proposal for the two-year state spending plan, more than a month after the start of a new fiscal year.
The state is operating off of the previous budget, but big organizations like schools are wondering what kind of raises and funding they’ll get with a new state budget.
Dr. Steve Ellis is the superintendent of Nash County Public Schools, and he is ready to see the numbers.
“When you hire a new teacher, example, so what do you tell them? How much they're going to make? You can't if they're saying we're getting 5% raise, it might be 8%, it might be nothing. If we don't have a budget, we basically just revert to what we did last year,” Ellis said.
There’s a lot on their plates already preparing for a new year, and waiting on a delayed budget can mean confusion and uncertainty.
Schools are also experiencing teacher shortages, and questions around pay doesn't help.
That’s one reason why Bailey Elementary School Principal Allen Wilson wants to make sure his staff are on the same page.
“The biggest thing that we've done to help with morale is teachers and staff want to know what's going on. So it's establishing consistent communication,” Wilson said.
Legislative leaders have said they expect to have a budget by the end of the month, but Ellis says any delay can cause hiccups.
“We have is we have to go back retro pay. It's just, it's just a mess. And if you think about your budget at your house, the problems you would have if you didn't know what you were going to bring in at the beginning of the year. So it just we're always catching up when we don't have a budget that's in place,” Ellis said.
Both men have years of experience working in public schools, and, unfortunately, this is not the first time a school year has begun without a new state budget.
“As we're prepping for a new school year, one, we want to make sure we have all our positions covered all the way down from custodian, all the way up to, you know, instructional coach, teaching positions, clerical staff. And we're fortunate to have all of our positions covered for this upcoming year. But we also want to make sure that when we start this year that we have structures in place to support student learning,” Wilson said.
“A lot of that does rely on the budget. And so we take what we get and we roll with it because that's what we do in public education,” he said.