Superintendent Pascal Mubenga has resigned after seven years with Durham Public Schools, in the wake of turmoil spawned by confusion and frustration over classified worker pay.

Bettina Umstead, chair of the Board of Education, announced Mubenga’s resignation after a closed-door special meeting. Deputy Superintendent Nicholas King is assuming the superintendent’s duties until an interim is named.

An internal review of the recent pay controversy, completed by the district’s attorneys at Tharrington Smith, raised issues Umstead noted as “concerning:”

• Lack of clarity and a failure of communication from the finance officer about the true cost of proposed changes to the classified worker salary schedule. Paul LeSieur, chief finance officer at the time, knew in February 2023 that the cost of pay raises would double payroll from $10 million to $20 million based on how years of service are calculated. “That variability was never communicated to the School Board and budget proposals consistently showed the cost as approximately $10 million,” Umstead said.
• Mubenga first became aware of the problem on Nov. 8 and engaged HIL Consultants to look into the matter. The full board was notified on Jan. 11, 2024, two months later.

“As a result, this situation has created unnecessary disruptions for our staff and students,” Umstead said. “When we first initiated these changes to our salary schedule, our goal was clear – to increase pay for our classified employees. We remain committed to achieving that goal and continue working diligently to provide all classified employees with clarity and certainty around their pay moving forward.”

She indicated that the board has scheduled a meeting with the Durham Association of Educators.

A board work session is set for tomorrow at 5:30 p.m.

Findings of the Internal Review

The executive summary that opens the report from Tharrington Smith discusses “evidence recovered thus far regarding the timeline and implementation of the classified salary schedule changes.” Among the findings:

• Board members approved moving forward with new pay schedules in October 2023 based on incomplete and inaccurate information.
• The administration decided to put employees on the new salary schedules without making changes to existing “steps” based on total years of experience, rather than shifting to counting just state longevity. “The Human Resources and Finance departments did not communicate effectively about the potential costs of this decision, and the Finance Officer did not change his budget estimates to reflect this decision,” the report states. “The ramifications of this decision were not discussed with or explained to the Board of Education.”

How the Classified Worker Pay Debacle Started

In October 2022, the district hired HIL Consultants to complete a classified salary study. The proposed cost: $78,500 plus expenses. They reviewed existing salary schedules and interviewed dozens of employees to develop new classified salary grades.

On Jan. 12, 2023, the study’s results were presented at a board work session. Two HIL representatives made a presentation and delivered a 39-page report. According to Tharrington Smith’s findings: “The written report presented by HIL contained multiple different statements regarding how employees’ years of experience could be counted for placement within the new salary grades. The Recommendations section (p. 21) recommended DPS “place employees on the correct levels based on years of experience . . . We recommend employees be converted to the proposed schedule at the current longevity years with Durham Public Schools . . . when employees are promoted, the employee should be placed at the actual years of experience verified by Durham Public Schools . . . We also recommend Durham Public Schools give private sector experience credit based on actual years of verified service for comparable job duties.”

The consultants gave an estimated cost of $10.8 million to implement the new salary schedules, but based their calculation on state longevity rather than their current step using total years of work experience.

“The presentation was placed on the agenda as a discussion item,” the internal report states. “No Board action was requested, and no vote was taken.”

In late February 2023, LeSieur asked his contracted budget analyst to figure the total cost of implementing the new salary schedules. Her estimate, sent in an email: More than $21 million. About a week later, LeSieur allegedly had the analyst recalculate using state longevity instead of steps, which yielded an estimate of slightly more than $13 million.

“The Finance Officer indicated that he thought this was affordable and forwarded his estimate to the HIL Consultants representative,” the report states. “We did not find evidence that these emails were forwarded to any other District officials.”

In later emails with the Durham County budget director and in his budget proposal, LeSieur relied on estimates calculated using state longevity rather than total years of experience.

On March 23, 2023, the superintendent presented his budget proposal to board members – the same presentation given to county commissioners on Jan. 31 – seeking an additional $4.1 million “to fund the classified salary study to bring DPS staff closer to market rate in the Durham area,” according to the report. The proposal still relied on cost estimates using state longevity to determine step placement.

The proposal was shown again at a public budget hearing on April 6, 2023, before it was approved by the Board of Education during a May 4 work session.

Sometime during Spring 2023, “the decision was made by the DPS administration to implement the new salary schedules without making any changes to employees’ existing ‘steps’ based on total years’ experience,” the report states. “This was reflected in mass communications and presentations created by the HR Department to employees about the new salary schedules. When staff in the Finance and HR Departments took steps to place employees on the new salary grades and update the payroll system, they maintained employees’ then-current steps based on total years of experience.”

Meanwhile, LeSieur and Mubenga continued to use cost estimates based on state longevity. “There was a lack of collaboration and clear communication between Finance and Human Resources leadership throughout the year as the new salary schedules were developed and implemented,” the report states.

During an Oct. 12 board meeting, district administrators gave a verbal presentation in which they shared that HIL had proposed new administrator salary schedules, “but the administration decided not to seek approval of those schedules due to the projected cost.” The administration then called for a flat 7% raise for classified administrators that would cost about $330,000 from the local budget.

LeSieur once again told the board that the new classified salary schedules would cost about $10 million from all funding sources.

“During the meeting, the administration repeatedly stated that the original HIL study had been approved by the Board in January, which was not accurate,” the report said. Board members sought clarification for what they were being asked to approve; Mubenga told them they had previously approved the salary study except for 68 administrators, and “he was only seeking approval of raises” for them.

The internal review finds that “the Board was never informed that implementing the new salary schedules using employees’ existing years of experience would nearly double the cost of the salary study.”

On Oct. 26, the board heard an update on the classified compensation study.

“It was marked as an information/discussion item only,” according to the report. “The new salary schedules were provided with the public agenda. The classified employee salary schedules as presented did not specify which jobs would be paid at which grade, nor was there any discussion about how years of experience would be calculated to determine employees’ steps within each grade. No Board action was requested and none was taken.”

Letters informing employees of their new salaries used existing steps. “Employees were also informed that they would receive a lump sum payment in November 2023 being the difference between their new monthly salaries and the monthly pay they had received from July-October 2023. The first checks with the new raises were paid at the end of October,” according to the report.

The DPS Crisis Erupts

On Nov. 8, LeSieur notified Mubenga about “a significant potential budget problem” that would put the district $12 million over budget for the year.

“That same day, the Superintendent contacted the HIL Consultants and asked them to review the District’s finances to determine if there was in fact a significant deficit due to the salary increase,” the report states.

Meanwhile, the wheels kept turning. Even after learning that the new classified salaries could lead to a multi-million dollar shortfall, Mubenga allowed paychecks to go out based on new salary schedules using total years of experience, along with retroactive payments.

Between Nov. 8 and Jan. 4, HIL Consultants reviewed the financial information. In a Dec. 13 email, the assistant superintendent for human resources at DPS confirmed to HIL that the district “made a choice not to implement the longevity-based system.”

It wasn’t until Dec. 18, the report indicates, that Mubenga first notified Umstead and fellow Board Member Natalie Beyer about the classified worker pay. “He told them he would bring the Board more details and multiple options for fixing the problem after the holidays,” the report states.

On Dec. 20, paychecks went out once again with salaries based on total years of experience. The district spent about $3.6 million more than anticipated for July-December classified payrolls.

On Jan. 4, HIL Consultants gave Mubenga a written report that confirmed the pay schedules were implemented using steps based on total years of experience.

“The report did not provide findings about how this had happened, it just summarized that they had reviewed payroll data and determined that the majority of classified employees had been placed on the new schedules based on the ‘assigned steps as of the previous fiscal year’ with ‘no correlation to the NC state longevity years which are verifiable.’ The consultants also identified other apparent shortfalls in the District’s budget, due in part to declining enrollment that has resulted in a significant decrease in state funding,” the Tharrington Smith report states.

On Jan. 9, Mubenga first contacted the board’s attorney. He brought the pay issue to the full board for the first time on Jan. 11. He told the attorneys and the board that the finance department used the wrong data for the new salary schedules. “We now know this was not an accurate description of the problem,” the internal report states. “The schedules were implemented using total years of experience as intended by the administration, but without providing accurate estimates to the Board of the cost of that decision. As a result, the classified salary increases were on track to cost nearly twice as much as the $10.8 million estimate presented to the Board and to the County.”

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