DPS School Board Tables Salary Decision to Next Week

After nearly five hours – a big chunk of that spent in closed session (again) – the Durham Public Schools Board of Education couldn’t reach consensus on any option to pay classified staff for February, let alone the rest of the school year.

So, in the end, members voted on a motion to table the discussion until Feb. 8. The motion, made by Natalie Beyer, passed 4-3 with the support of Vice Chair Emily Chavez, Jessica Carda-Auten, and Millicent Rogers. Alexandra Valladares, Jovonia Lewis, and Chair Bettina Umstead voted no.

In doing so, Umstead commented that “people have to plan for their lives.”

That came after discussion of holding the line – for now – on classified worker salaries as implemented in October and before what most board members seem comfortable describing as a “debacle” or “disaster” in January when DPS administrators declared they couldn’t pay occupational therapists, bus mechanics, nurses, and other classified staff what they’d been promised. Chavez sought support for keeping that pay level in place for February, but that went nowhere.

After that failed, Beyer asked her colleagues to approve the second option offered by the administration, which would give classified workers an across-the-board 11% raise over their 2022/23 wages. That would’ve held in place while the board collaborated with the Durham County Commission to sort out the upcoming 2024/25 district budget.

“You will have zero staff on Monday,” warned a classified worker in the audience.

Board members voted 5-2 against that idea, with Beyer and Umstead voting aye.

After that, Lewis sought backing for approval of the first option offered by the administration, which would reverse the raises given in October and replace them with a 4% raise over 2022/23 pay. That motion died without a second.

The board later voted to bring on Kerry Crutchfield, former budget director of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, as an independent comptroller to report to board members and dig into the district’s finances on their behalf.

The special meeting started about 3 p.m. Friday. As soon as members approved the day’s agenda, they considered a motion to go into closed session, a move that did little to engender a sense of transparency and openness with dozens of onlookers in the crowd. Mary Helen Moore, a reporter for The Raleigh News & Observer, rose in protest of the closed session to the applause of DPS staff. Despite her objection, board members departed and didn’t return for nearly an hour and a half.

When the board reconvened in open session, Umstead gave an opening statement, saying in part:

“Many of our valued employees have been through stressful, challenging times of late. The students and families we serve, over the past few weeks, have been through uncertain, stressful times. This has been hard on all of them, on everyone who works at Durham Public Schools, and on our entire Durham community.”

Umstead insisted that any reduction of salaries since October wouldn’t be an indication that the district thinks their employees aren’t worth it.

“We are saying, absolutely, that we cannot choose an option that is unsustainable and that would deplete all the school system’s funds,” she said.

The board heard public comment again from staffers who didn’t like either option, who didn’t feel like their work was valued (no matter how often district leaders say otherwise in press releases), and who worry that if the district goes back on its word to classified workers, it will damage retention of current staff and recruitment of new workers.

The common refrain from speakers: “Find the money.”

Even Jeff Staton, a security specialist who’s a familiar face at Board of Education meetings, warned that picking either of the two options up for consideration wouldn’t stop the sick-outs that stalled school buses or left 12 schools closed during the past two weeks. Staton noted that his experience steps fell from 34 to 16 under the DPS revision in January.

Much energy was spent on the classified worker salary discussion before that ended in a rain check. But Valladares – who plans to finish her current term on the board but won’t seek re-election – also wanted to get at the details behind how this happened.

She offered three motions aimed at bringing more transparency to the situation. She wanted to waive personnel privacy protections in the interest of protecting the board’s integrity to determine, among other things, when the district’s former chief financial officer, Paul LaSieur, knew the district couldn’t honor the promises it made to staff in October and when he notified Superintendent Pascal Mubenga. She would also have sought to reveal when Mubenga knew about the situation and when he communicated that information to members of the board.

(Editor’s Note: Southpoint Access – and no doubt other media outlets – has submitted public records requests to DPS seeking that sort of information. For Southpoint Access, so far that’s led only to an assurance that they’re looking into what they can reveal. Which sounds, at this point, like nothing because it involves personnel documentation.)

The board’s attorney, Rod Malone, explained that such information would be included in any report issued after the completion of the district’s investigation of how this happened. That could be “soon,” Malone said. He agreed that the board could direct the superintendent to make that information available, but that the request would have to be put in a memo and then taken up at a later meeting.

Valladares couldn’t get any other board members to second her motions, and thus they died without further discussion while the internal investigation continues. She told the classified workers in the crowd: “The truth that you want will have to go through many revisions.”

Her concerns weren’t just about the shortfalls of DPS administrators, though. She took time to tell staffers – particularly those in the DAE – that while she applauded their display of power in disrupting school operations to demonstrate displeasure at the salary situation, she urged them to avoid harming the very students they profess to serve.

“The kids didn’t do anything wrong,” Valladares said. “We can’t afford to do that to our kids.”

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