On Sept. 26, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and Orange County Board of Education held a joint meeting to discuss finances in Orange County schools.
What's new?
- While Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools financial numbers are not yet finalized, the projected losses show a potential budget deficit for the school district.
- The projected losses of the local fund balance are estimated to be $15,612,862 between 2021 and 2024.
- This year, the projected numbers show a loss of around $5.6 million. The school district now has a negative fund balance of about $81,500.
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CHCCS Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Scott said the district is working to address the deficit.
- CHCCS has implemented the Reduction in Force plan, a three-tiered corrective approach to district spending. Scott said he expects the plan to save CHCCS $2.4 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
- “What the Board and the district has done is really implement a three-tiered approach to resizing the district in a manner that will put us back on a financially sustainable course,” Scott said.
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Scott said over the last four years, CHCCS has experienced more local budget deficits because of rising costs from inflation and a decrease in student enrollment.
- Since the 2020 fiscal year, he said there has been a 10 percent drop in enrollment. He said CHCCS receives about $8,000 per student from the state.
- “Not only are we losing [enrolled students], we're also losing in today's dollars about $8 million in state funding, and that really affects some of our fixed costs,” he said.
- CHCCS can expect a $3.64 million increase in revenue this year between the special district tax and the BOCC's budget, Scott said.
- “This whole three-tiered approach was designed as a bridge to try and preserve as many people's positions and give everybody as much notice as possible, as we move to bringing the organization more in line with the fiscal realities of the day,” Scott said.
- CHCCS wanted to take an aggressive approach to rebuilding some of the fund balance in case it experiences another emergency like it did during COVID-19, he said.
- Superintendent of CHCCS Nyah Hamlett said 37 positions were eliminated during the first tier of the Reduction in Force plan.
- She said during the second tier of the plan, 24 central office positions were eliminated. Every staff member impacted by the cutting of jobs was offered reassignment within the district.
- By the end of the 2024 academic year, 43 positions are anticipated to be eliminated during the third tier of the plan, she said.
- “As people resign or separate from the district through retirement, then we will freeze those positions," she said. "We won't fill them and at the end of the school year, those positions will be eliminated.”
- She said as of June 2025, a total of 26 positions will be reduced.
- OCS Chief Finance Officer Rhonda Rath said with the federal funds OCS received to address COVID-19, they implemented sign-on bonus programs to recruit and retain staff, added new positions and initiatives and allocated resources for student growth.
- Departmental budgets were reduced by approximately $700,000 by reallocating funds to support literacy and curriculum needs, academic support and salary increases for athletic staff that had not been increased in over 10 years, she said.
- “To balance our budget and to maintain the focus on the strategic plan, we had to thoughtfully look at every budget line item,” Rath said.
- Rath said OCS has a projected decline in its fund balance from the previous two years.
- The fund balance decreased from $6.6 million in 2021 to $3.4 million by the end of the 2023 fiscal year. OCS is projected to be at a $4.1 million fund balance by the end of the 2024 fiscal year.
