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Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools has provided another update to their budget woes, with the district saying that the estimated shortfall is now estimated at approximately $42 million, or five percent of the total budget.

The shortfall comes as a result of WS/FCS using federal pandemic funds to provide additional support to meet the students’ growing academic and mental health needs. The district did not adequately forecast and plan for the reductions to personnel or programming needed to be made due to the loss of those federal funds and reduction in state dollars due to lower student enrollment, leaving the district in a “very unfortunate financial situation,” according to a letter sent to the state Board of Education and NC Department of Public Instruction.

The district currently expects to use all of its unrestricted fund balance to assist in covering the overspent funds. District leaders are also working with the Forsyth County government to identify options to repay the money owed to the state, according to the school district’ update.

District officials have been discussing options to alleviate the budget crisis. Options discussed in the past few weeks have included:

• Eliminating all district cell phones, saving $215,000. This was an additional cost savings beyond the reduction of cell phones already underway.  
• Reducing color printing and some floor waxing, saving $200,000. 
• Eliminate substitutes for teaching assistants, except where required by law, saving $400,000. 
• Reduce Pre-K classrooms due to low enrollment, saving $400,000.  
• Increasing class size for grades 4-12 by two students. It would change class sizes to 27 students for grades 4-5; 29 students for middle school; and 31 for high school, saving $6.6 million. 
• Transporting students only to residential or magnet schools, saving $3.5 million. 

When District Superintendent Tricia McManus presented those options to the WS/FCS Board of Education, she said that they each had support from several stakeholder groups, which included the classified staff advisory council board, principals and all departments.

The district has said throughout the budget discussion that their main priority is retaining as many staff positions as possible and ensuring that employees receive payment.

WS/FCS Board of Education hears update on redistricting

This week, Board of Education members got an update on the district’s project to redesign residential school boundaries. This month the project team has been working to incorporate feedback from thousands of community members into a new set of maps.

The next draft is due to be released to the board and community in June.

“The next revision of maps are going to calm a lot of worries,” said Frank Pantano, who is co-leading the project.

Board members stressed that any changes to school boundaries should be made over a period of time, rather than being adopted all at once.

“We all agree there are pockets, there are areas that need to be addressed,” said Board Chair Deanna Kaplan. “But doing the whole district at one time is very disruptive.”

Board members also expressed concerns about whether the district would have the financial means to implement boundary changes. Some worried that families might leave the district if they did not like the final map results. They also discussed the idea of making targeted changes to address the highest needs for overcrowding or transportation inefficiencies, rather than change boundaries across all schools at once.

Project staff said there is no timeline to enact new boundaries.

“This was not about implementation. This was about us listening, doing the research, doing the analysis to understand our landscape,” said Dr. Effie McMillian, the other project lead.