Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools budget shortfall draws questions with few answers
Parents, educators and staff members at the district are bracing for the impact while many are left wondering how this could happen.
Superintendent Tricia McManus pointed to inflation, enrollment declining, less federal and state funding and other revenue challenges as reasons for the overspending.
School districts across the country were given a portion of what you've probably heard called ESSER funds, which were three rounds of emergency funds relating to the pandemic. They were always going to be temporary, but many school districts used them to pay for programs and salaries with no plan to keep funding them when the well dried up.
'I think what it showed is that the federal funding we received that has gone away was really imperative to support our students post-pandemic, and we're still supporting our students post-pandemic,' McManus said on Tuesday night.
She cited the end of ESSER funding as one of the reasons the district has a $5 million budget deficit, which was revealed after an audit. She also pointed to the state.
'The funding we're getting from the state has decreased, but if you look at the needs of our students, that has not decreased. That has increased. Even though enrollment has decreased, some of the needs are greater,' she said.
North Carolina is historically at the bottom of the list in terms of funding per student, and only 8 percent of the district's entire budget was funded by the state in the fiscal year 2023.
With no more money coming in from the federal or state level, the district has to make immediate cuts before June 30.
They're ending some take-home cars, cutting travel, not hiring new people in the central office and more.
The next fiscal year, which starts July 1, is more ambitious: save $16 million.
The proposal would change 116 positions. Some are vacant, so they would just be dissolved. Some people would get demoted, some would be reassigned and others would lose a month of employment, saving $7.2 million.
'This will never be something easy or that I would want to do, but it's something … to have that fiscal sustainability for our school district,' McManus said.
Still, the district has not been clear on how the overspending happened and what guardrails they plan to put in place to prevent it from happening again.
What FOX8 did find in the 80-plus-page audit document is a lack of staffing attributed as a reason money was spent and not noticed quickly. The district has an open director of finance position, which is still missing from the district's website.
FOX8 requested a district employee to sit down with us and walk through the many questions we still have and sent several follow-up requests to the district spokesperson with no answer via phone or email on Wednesday.
FOX8 also reached out to President of the Forsyth County Association of Educators Jenny Easter, and she said that even after this is resolved, public schools will need more help from the state level.
'The parents need to get with us. The community needs to get with us to put pressure on the state because this really shouldn't be a district county thing. Counties are really only supposed to worry about facilities, and look how much they are picking up,' Easter said.
In 2024, WS/FCS Chief Financial Officer Thomas Kranz asked Forsyth County for $184 million, which is $20 million more than the year prior.
They were given $9 million more than the year prior or $11 million less than requested.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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