Durham Public Schools Superintendent addresses district's budget shortfall

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Durham Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Anthony Lewis and the new Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Teetor spoke to the press on Friday to give an overview of the budget shortfalls.

Both leaders are new to the district, with Teetor becoming the CFO 40 days ago and Lewis 100 days ago. Their goal is to get the district on the right path.

District leaders revealed their new finance team discovered a massive shortfall and made quick decisions to decrease that number by 80 percent.

"It was around 34 million," said Lewis.

He said through the hard work of his team, they were able to get it down to $6.9 million.

The number comes from a variety of areas such as 315 positions not accounted for, payments to charter schools- when a child leaves the district for a charter school, the child nutrition program cost, and even rising utilities.

"This is just an update or snapshot, if you will, of where we are right now, given our budget status. Also being mindful of where this district has been this past year. I will say this... We are confident that we have a plan to address these challenges but again, we also want to make sure that we are sharing with the community," said Lewis.

District leaders said they hope to not impact a child's experience in the classroom.

"Our goal is to...you often hear, 'trimming the fat without cutting the vein'. Students would be a vein for me, so we don't want to do that," Lewis said. "We are trying to do all we can to protect our programs, protect our students, and anything that is yielding positive results in terms of academic achievement and social and emotional growth for our scholars."

President of Durham Association of Educators Mika Twietmeyer shared a statement on Friday:

"The issues in DPS will not get better until the district commits to more transparency, accountability, and collaboration, and stops union busting by passing real meet and confer policy to meaningfully engage their staff. Transparency isn't on the back end. It's not telling people that there is a crisis. It's engaging them before the crisis occurs. Once again, mismanagement and a lack of transparency have led to egregious mistakes from downtown, and students and frontline staff have to pay the price," said Twietmeyer.

Teetor explained there are several contributing factors to the deficit like the ending of COVID funding, rising costs, and inconsistent staffing.

"Durham did go through a period of time without a financial officer at the most inconvenient time possible when you are having to plan, coming off the esser funding. Unfortunately, that is the reality at any given time there are twenty school systems without a CFO in the chain. I would not point anything at one person," he said.

Both leaders confirmed the additional funds from the county went toward classified employee pay raises. They both cited Interim Superintendent Caty Moore's decision to set aside 15 percent, putting the district in a better place.

School Board members are hopeful the district can overcome this financial challenge.

"One of the things that I knew about our board and our administration is that we all understand that the most important things to members of our community are their money and they do it right. And so we have to do the right thing with our money. To make sure that we're investing in our students because they are the future of Durham and they are the future of this district and beyond," said Milicent Rogers, DPS School Board Chair.

To continue with his theme of transparency, Dr. Lewis wants to have a budget series with teachers, students, and community members on a continuous basis.

The district plans to share more details about the budget during the public school board meeting on Tuesday.

Watch Full Video:

RELATED: DPS parents concerned about 'responsibility zones,' budget deficit