The Durham County Board of Commissioners didn’t find a magic pot of gold that will fix all of the issues in Durham Public Schools (DPS). But commissioners did scrimp and scrounge and turn over all the municipal couch cushions to fund a $13 million increase for the school district’s 2025-26 budget.
About $6 million of that increase will go to just helping the district maintain the same level of services in an increasingly expensive time, but the other $7 million is set to fund better pay for teachers, bus drivers, special education staff, and workers with master’s degrees.
The increase is $3 million higher than what the county had originally proposed but $3 million lower than the increase DPS had asked for. Meeting the district halfway is a pretty good deal in a municipal budget cycle that was defined by the dark buzzwords “economic uncertainty.”
All told, $224.5 million of Durham County’s $1 billion budget for next fiscal year will go directly to the school district. As INDY previously reported, in order to fund the budget, residents will see a property tax increase with a rate of 55.42¢ per $100 of value. With the new tax rate—and new (generally higher) property values from this year’s revaluation—the average tax bill for 2025 will amount to just over $2,305, up from $1,705 in 2019.
After a unanimous vote of preliminary approval, county commissioner Wendy Jacobs pointed out to residents that public safety (EMS and the sheriff’s department) and DPS were the only areas to receive money for expansion in what she called “probably the most difficult budget” of her 13-year tenure.
“We’re in that austerity time,” Jacobs said at a meeting last week. In nearby Orange County, for instance, the county commission didn’t give its school districts the amount needed for maintaining their current levels of service because it would’ve required an even higher tax hike.
That tension of austerity was on full display in Durham’s process: In order to give more to DPS without raising taxes more than the county manager already suggested, the commission decided to move $500,000 that had been tentatively marked for an expansion of the Hayti Reborn project.
Hayti Reborn will still receive $500,000 from the county to meet its continuation request, but commissioner Mike Lee warned against taking away that expansion proposal.
“If we continue to divest throughout Durham, there’s not going to be anything left,” Lee said softly into his microphone at a commission meeting last week. “And I fear for that.”
The DPS board had asked the commission for a $16 million increase, and the county manager initially counterproposed a $10 million increase. Over the monthlong budget process, commissioner Michelle Burton led the charge to find an extra $2.6 million for DPS. Burton previously served as president of the DPS teachers’ union, the Durham Association of Educators (DAE), until 2023.
Last year, the union helped pressure the commission into providing a historic $26 million increase.
This year, the DAE seemed to recognize the commission had neither the political will nor the funds to push much higher than that $13 million (though DAE president Mika Twietmeyer wouldn’t really be doing her job if she didn’t ask the commission for more, as she did in brief remarks at the meeting on Monday night).
INDY has previously examined what the board would fund with a full $16 million increase and how it might adjust for only a $10 million increase. While the county commission can make suggestions, it can’t dictate exactly how DPS spends its money, so the school board will still have to decide what’s in and what’s out with the $13 million increase.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the DPS allotment was $223.5 million.