“It’s time to unite the Wake GOP once again toward the vision of American exceptionalism, freedom and Constitutional rights.”
Wake County Public School Budget talking points and research:
Chairman Update – 4/30/2023
Wake County Superintendent Moore will request additional funds from the County Commissioners above the proposed budget due to anticipated over-spending. In fiscal year ’23 alone, Moore will be requesting an additional $56M in school funding.
Hundreds of millions in COVID relief money was mismanaged and spent in areas not focused on quality education. Last year’s WCPSS budget briefing showed the board “carrying-over” $220M in COVID relief funds to cover ’22-’23 fiscal spending.
Over the last few years, all administrative positions in the county have received significant raises. Administration positions at the County have ballooned to unprecedented levels. The Superintendent is one of the highest paid in all of the US. And yet teachers received modest bonuses, are still paying for their own school supplies, and the board diverts money from the classroom to social justice initiatives like the Office of Equity Affairs.
Currently no line-item audit exists for the $2.1B WCPSS budget. Extreme malfeasance and waste has led to millions in education dollars wasted. In April, WCPSS Superintendent Cathy Moore briefed that the board was “carrying-over” $220M in COVID relief funds to cover an anticipated “fiscal cliff”. Additionally, she briefed the County Commissioners that the board had exceeded their budget by $56M. No one can accurately track where each dollar has been spent.
In March 2021, the NCAE (teacher’s union) president tweeted “Learning loss is a false construct.” In September 2021, Mahaffey and the Wake County School Board suspended its after school program aimed at mitigating learning loss. The board and NCAE have ignored the devastating effects of learning loss and have not spent current funds on educational measures to mitigate the continuing effects of that.
IEPs and 504 plans are being neglected. The school board failed to provide budgetary and other support to families during the school closures, while other districts larger than Wake successfully assisted their families. Wake schools must immediately and drastically improve services to special needs families.
43% of North Carolina K-12 schools received a grade of D or F on state report cards, and state test scores show academic achievement is lagging and racial achievement gaps are widening.
Earlier this year a consensus emerged that tutoring is the best method to remedy the impacts of learning loss. The 20 NC districts with the highest number of failing schools spent on average less than 1% (0.85 %) on tutoring. Fourteen districts spent less than 1%, while only three districts spent over 2%. Those same 20 districts, on average, spent about 9% of Covid funding on employee benefits.
The score disparity between different racial groups is alarming, despite the fact that the Office of Equity Affairs This is no more evident than in Wake where only $250M of almost $450M of COVID funds meant to mitigate learning loss were spent.
