Earlier this year a budget crisis began bubbling to the surface with Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools which has now reached a crescendo. Just a sampling of the headlines alone tell a story of mismanagement by WS/FCS leadership.
March 26th in WGHP: “Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools has $5 million budget deficit, could cut jobs, superintendent says”
March 27th in WGHP: “‘Buck stops with me’: Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools superintendent discusses budget deficit”
April 9th in WFMY: “‘I Apologize’: WS/FCS admits to $13M oversight as budget gaps widen”
April 22nd in WXII: “Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Superintendent Tricia McManus announces retirement”
May 6th in WFMY: “NC officials demand action from Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools over $16 million budget shortfall”
May 9th in WFDD: “WS/FCS budget shortfall higher than projected”
May 13th in WGHP: “Teachers concerned about pay following $16 million Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools budget shortfall”
August 14th in WFMY: “‘Deep financial hole’ | Audit reveals causes of WS/FCS $46M budget deficit”
August 14th in WGHP: “State audit reveals Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools gave out $75 million in bonuses in 2022-23; no fraud, theft found”
August 20th in WXII: “WS/FCS Board of Education votes to eliminate 340 jobs, impacting more than 250 employees”
These stories and investigations by the state revealed that for seven years WS/FCS administration made errors such as not adjusting overall staffing to match the decreased student enrollment in WS/FCS.
WS/FCS leadership also overspent its budget so frequently that from July 1st, 2024 to May 9th, 2025 alone the school system administration manually overrode 311 separate times.
Perhaps most exemplary of the school system’s mismanagement, the district was five months late on turning over the results of an audit due in November 2024, not submitting it until May 2025. In that time the problem only deepened.
A few weeks ago we shared about a series of WRAL articles on how Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) has a $200 million backlog in HVAC maintenance created by the district’s spending priorities, spending a grand total of zero dollars of the $172.8 million from the federal government meant to address this backlog. Similarly, WS/FCS used COVID-era federal grants to fund jobs with no plan for what to do when that temporary funding dried up.
Our warning then for WCPSS rings true today for WS/FCS: The mismanagement is extraordinarily similar to the tax-and-spend liberal budgeting at the state level in the 2000s that wrecked the state’s budget. Liberal legislators frequently used non-recurring funds to pay for recurring budget line items – coupled with their high tax policies – when a recession came so did layoffs, furloughs and salary freezes.
Now WS/FCS is faced with tens of millions in debt, hundreds of laid off employees, and hundreds more furloughed staff. The biggest area of staff cuts impacted Exceptional Children programs, with 61.9 EC teachers and 97 EC teacher assistants let go.
Leaders in Forsyth County would be wise to examine the responsible choices made by conservatives at the North Carolina General Assembly made starting in 2011. Pay off the debt, fund the real needs of the system, and keep spending aligned with reality.
