$16M Calculation Error Leads to Confusion Over Some North Carolina Teacher Raises

School teachers and staff at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools in North Carolina will not receive expected pay raises because the school district mistakenly approved $16 million, which is more than the budget set for salary increases.

Before the holiday break on December 14, the school district's board of education approved a new supplement plan that included salary increases for staff, including teachers, counselors, psychologists, and audiologists among others, according to a December 16 news release that sent to Newsweek on Friday.

Under the approved plan, first-year 10-month teachers on the bachelor's
schedule would have received $8,200 annually in local supplements.

However, the school's district superintendent, Tricia McManus, said in a letter to staff, which was sent to Newsweek, that the approved salary increases for the certified employees were above what was budgeted for local increases, so employees would not get the expected pay increase.

"It was a significant calculation mistake and thankfully it was captured before the schedule was ever implemented and executed," McManus wrote in the letter. "I never want to give misinformation and false hope, especially when it involves your compensation."

She added, "I join our finance and human resources teams in sincerely apologizing for the mistake, and I regret the formula error was not captured before the salary schedules were made public."

Now that the calculation mistake has been discovered, school administrators will present a new salary schedule to the board of education on Tuesday, according to McManus. The new local supplement schedule will be decided based on the school's district budget.

"While it likely will not be as high as the amounts portrayed in the previously approved schedule," McManus said, "as we have said from the beginning of this process, we are committed to ensuring a significant supplement increase for our staff."

The superintendent said that the proposal will include a "minimum average annual supplement increase of $1,800," according to her letter. This amount will be decided based on where staff members are on the supplemental schedule.

"The beginning teacher annual supplement would be a minimum of $6,400," McManus said, "While not as high as what was previously approved, this supplement increase will be greater than in years past."

She assured employees that the proposal is meant to "minimize the gap between what was published in December and what is more in line with the amount of money available for supplements."

The superintendent also said the school district will make sure that another miscalculation is avoided in the future by reorganizing the teams that manage and monitor compensation.

"We have implemented a new four-step process to check all salary formulas and calculations before they are made public and before presenting to the Board of Education for approval," she said in the letter.

"With these new, lengthy checks and balances in place, it will allow us to avoid this in the future," McManus added.

Update 01/07/22, 6:35 p.m. ET: The story has been updated to include the school district's December 16 news release about employee salaries and a letter from the school district's superintendent, Tricia McManus.