State budget limbo puts Wake schools budget on hold

But the move is a temporary fix to what school board members see as potentially another year of budget and staff cuts, something board member Susan Evans described as “embarrassing.”

“I am so saddened to be sitting here at this point this year, faced with the same potential hard decisions, knowing that our state is no longer in a recession,” she said during Tuesday’s school board meeting. “And questioning why we are in this place. I say the answer to that question has to be that those who control funding at the state level do not have public education as a priority. And we must make our voices known.”

School board members were supposed to vote on the district’s 2014-15 budget on Tuesday, but depending on what happens in the General Assembly, they may end up asking commissioners for an additional $10.2 million.

“The last chapter hasn’t been written yet, but the picture we’re looking at isn’t hopeful,” board member Bill Fletcher said.

Salary increases from 2 to 4.3 percent

Eliminate teacher tenure

5 percent average salary increase

No increase to 2 percent average increase

Step increase, $809 one-time bonus if at top of salary schedule

Step increase, 2 percent one-time bonus if at top of salary schedule

$809 one-time bonus to a step increase

Step increase, $809 one-time bonus if at top of salary schedule

Step increase, 2 percent one-time bonus if at top of salary schedule

$809 salary increase for full-time permanent staff

$500 salary increase for full-time permanent staff

$1,000 salary increase for full-time permanent staff

One of the few similarities between the budgets is master’s degree pay, which would be restored.

But the three proposals create serious funding gaps for Wake schools:

- $900,000 gap to meet the House’s budget proposal

“At a time when other businesses are investing in their own, North Carolina has failed to reinvest in its schools,” Wake County schools Superintendent Jim Merrill said during the school board meeting. “It’s clearly failed to reinvest in its schools, which includes its teachers and employees.”

“Creating salary increases by slashing other areas (of education) is not a formula for academic success,” Tim Markley, superintendent of New Hanover County Schools, said.

Markley and Merrill said North Carolina teachers have gone more than five years without a meaningful pay increase, which has made it difficult to fill positions.

“If you fail to invest in your employees, they leave,” Merrill said during the press conference. “This is what superintendents are seeing as we prepare for the upcoming school year.”