In a joint meeting between Durham’s school board and county commissioners on Tuesday, county manager Claudia Hager emphasized the county’s “unwavering” commitment to its public schools—but proposed a draft budget that falls $6 million short of the school board’s request.
“There are so many mandated services and commitments that county commissioners have to deal with,” Hager told the assembled policymakers about her $1 billion FY 2025-26 budget in which DPS funding is the single largest expenditure. “And often more competing priorities than there are dollars to support them.”
Last month, Durham’s school board unanimously voted to request a $222 million operating budget from the county commission. That would be about $16 million more than the county’s public school system received last year.
In the county manager’s draft budget, which serves as something of a counteroffer to the DPS ask, Hager suggested giving $10 million of that increase (though Hager pointed out that the county provides an additional $77 million to DPS in indirect services like school resource officers and debt service payments).
The budget is far from finalized, and funding for Durham Public Schools has changed between proposed and final versions before. Last year, amid a dramatic pay debacle, DPS requested a roughly $27.7 million increase and the then-county manager countered with a $13 million increase. The commission eventually met the board at $27 million.
Durhamites will have opportunities to weigh in at a public hearing on May 27, and the county commission is having as many as three work sessions before voting on June 9.
For the past month, school board members have been the targets of the Durham Association of Educators (DAE)’s pressure campaign of public meetings, endless phone calls and voicemails, and a practice picket as the majority union pushed the board to provide more transparency and to ask the county for more money.
With this year’s DPS budget request finalized, that lobbying pressure will now shift to the county commission. At the joint meeting Tuesday, school board members seemed prepared to step back into a more passive role and to let the union and the public bring the heat over the next few weeks.
Veteran school board member Natalie Beyer, for instance, struck a friendly yet pointed tone as she detailed the differences between the DPS request and the county’s draft budget.
“I don’t want to get anything wrong when I’m talking to constituents,” said Beyer. “I know our board will continue to have conversations—if this is your final offer, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t in Durham,” Beyer said with a small smile.
Everyone laughed.
“We still would like to see more investment in our budget request from the county and know that our commissioners support that as well,” board chair Millicent Rogers tells INDY via text. “Manager Hager’s budget does a great job at meeting some of those needs and we look forward to continued conversations with Commissioners and the community.”
The requested $16 million increase would cover $6 million in continuation costs (i.e., just keeping the lights on), $2.3 million to increase the local supplement for teacher’s pay, $1.6 million for teacher and aide positions from the district’s “growing together” plan, $1.4 million for increased pay for educators with master’s degrees, $1.1 million for specialized support for students with disabilities, $600,000 for “social-emotional resources,” $377,000 for a bus driver pay supplement, and a legally required $2 million passthrough for local charter schools.
With only a $10 million increase, the board would have to make some difficult decisions about which of those to prioritize (INDY has previously outlined the tough math that Triangle counties are facing as they calculate how to maintain their robust public school systems without continuing to price out longtime residents with unbearable tax increases).
Neighboring Wake County Public Schools, for instance, is set to cut its local teacher pay supplement despite requesting a $40 million increase from the county.
“We’re gonna have to be very creative and really think outside the box on how we can meet the needs that have been laid out in the budget because they’re absolutely all legitimate needs,” said county commissioner Wendy Jacobs on Tuesday.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].