Challenges ahead as New Hanover County Board of Education gets first look at proposed budget

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The New Hanover County Board of Education got its first look at a draft of the school district’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

More than 275 jobs cut and $20 million less to run the school district is part of the first draft, representing the budget’s worst-case scenario.

The proposed cuts include reducing the number of preschool classes and serving 30 fewer students, something board member Pat Bradford isn’t happy about.

“We’ve always, always been more top-heavy and we need kindergarten more than we need positions in central office,” Bradford said. “We are hopeful that we can work things out but it’s going to take all seven of us to vote in the same direction.”

A majority of cuts are for school personnel: 220 positions made up of teachers, social workers, and guidance counselors.

For example, in that category, AIG teachers would be reduced from 34 to 20.

Board member Stephanie Walker said before the budget can be approved and sent to the county, the board needs to figure out what is most important to focus on.

“Only that I think, another thing that came out is that we would like as a board to get together and talk about what our priorities are,” Walker said. “We definitely don’t want to do a lot of EC cuts. It might be okay in some departments to do the minimum but I just don’t think in this case it is.”

Board chairman Peter Wildeboer said the board will continue working to ensure education is supported.

“We’re going to continue to work as hard as we possibly can to work with our HR department, working with Dr. Faust, working with the county commissioners, and going to the endowment so we’re going to do our very, very best for our students as we have and we’ll continue to do so,” Wildeboer said.

The board will present the official budget to county commissioners for approval in May.