Mecklenburg County budget withholds $11 million from CMS, district says 175 jobs at risk

Mecklenburg County commissioners approved a roughly $525 million allocation to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Tuesday, withholding millions in contingency in a move that school district leaders say could lead to the elimination of 175 jobs.

The $1.9-billion budget approved by the county includes a clause that restricts $11 million in recurring funds from the school district until it pays all hourly staff a minimum wage of $15.

School board chair Elyse Dashew has said the district would need to cut $11.7 million elsewhere in its budget to make the raise possible. While CMS operates on a $1.6 billion budget, much of that money comes from state funding, which is restricted to certain purposes and cannot easily be moved around.

CMS historically gets one-third of its funding from the county.

Districts in North Carolina are also not allowed to budget on a deficit, meaning CMS cannot head into the upcoming fiscal year on the assumption that it will eventually receive the $11 million, meaning it must move recurring county funding, the majority of which goes to salaries, to fill the deficit and meet the $15 hourly wage mandate.

“What we do is filled with unfunded mandates,” Dashew told the Observer Monday. “In the midst of the pandemic, we have a new big unfunded mandate from the county.”

In total, the county gave CMS a $26 million increase from its previous year’s budget. The county did not approve CMS’s request for funding to continue with year two of a three-year plan to raise all employees to a $15 minimum wage, instead imposing the requirement to reach that level this year.

The decision to withhold money in contingency was approved during a straw vote session on the budget last week.

County Commissioners Chairman George Dunlap criticized CMS for being the only major local government agency that did not pay its employees a $15 hourly minimum wage, saying the county and the city had already accomplished that goal.

Dashew said the school district originally proposed a three-year plan because it wanted to be realistic with its requests of the county and did not want to ask for too large of a funding increase in one year.

Earlier this year, the county told CMS to expect a flat budget allotment from the previous year due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and related shutdowns. But CMS said that would mean effective cuts, as much of the nearly $37 million increase it asked for was for mandated changes like funding for charter school students.

Many of CMS’s high-profile initiatives, including a local supplement for teacher salaries, more teachers in low-income schools, and expanded support positions like counselors and therapists, are predominantly funded by the county, making them the positions most likely jeopardized by a reduction in county funding.