DPS Board set to address budget as effects from pay dispute linger

The Durham Public Schools board is resuming talks on Thursday night on the largest budget proposal the district has ever put forth.

It follows months of upheaval for DPS employees, which resulted in widespread walkouts and a reckoning about pay in the district.

Some employees said the ripple effects of that pay crisis are still being felt every day.

"Now I feel like I'm in this hole I can't get out of," said Valerie McNeil, a special education instructor at the School for Creative Studies.

McNeil said her life was upended by the pay crisis, and that underpayments were part of a downward spiral that culminated in her eviction from her apartment -- leaving her without a permanent home since November. McNeil said she never stopped coming to work.

"We care about the kids. Because if we didn't, we wouldn't be coming to work through this mess," she said.

McNeil claimed her requests to the district for a pay advance -- as classified employees in Durham are paid monthly -- were denied. ABC11 asked DPS about those claims, but a district spokesperson said they were not able to comment on personnel matters.

Now, McNeil will be one of the thousands of employees who hope the recently proposed budget -- more than double the amount asked for last year -- might provide relief. The head of Durham's teachers' union called the proposal "historic".

"To have the Superintendent start off by saying, $26 million, particularly in a year where the county has kind of done a lot of level setting about what people can expect -- she has named that these are very real needs and we agree," said Symone Kiddoo, President of the Durham Association of Educators.

That $26 million budget includes more than $8 million to cover salary increases for DPS' support staff and classified employees. It also sets a 5% raise for the 2024-25 school year for certified employees and a 3% raise for classified employees, per the raises approved by state lawmakers last year. It also includes a carveout for master's program pay.

Kiddoo said she hopes the final version includes more for ESL or ELL workers and special education workers such as McNeil.

"Those folks are often incredibly overworked, like every educator, but even more so," said Kiddoo. "And those folks need to have a higher compensation to match the amount of work they're doing."

That's a provision that McNeil said would send a simple message.

"It would, it would let us know that you care about what we do," she said.

The school budget must be adopted by the DPS Board before it is brought before the Durham County Commissioners for final approval.