Craven County board orders budget rewrite to restore nurses, social workers and freezes new vendor contracts

The Craven County Board of Education voted at its regular meeting to freeze new vendor contracts paid from local funds and directed staff to revise the proposed 2025–26 local expense budget so it can cover four school social workers and a nurse in every school by reallocating other local positions and contracts.

The motions came during an extended budget review and a public hearing that drew parents, teachers and advocates who urged the board to preserve or restore school nurses and social workers. Vice Chair Patty Mason made the request that staff revise the budget to “ensure that we can pay 4 social workers, a nurse in every school, and that we, adjust appropriately other staffing among elementary guidance counselors to pay for that.” The motion passed 5–2; board members Darlene Gibbs and Patty Mason voted no, and Jennifer Dacey, Amy Davis, Lee Kirkman, Lauren Kitzinger and Lori Spies voted yes.

Why it matters: Board members and dozens of public commenters said school-based nursing and social-work services are critical to student safety, chronic health needs and mental-health supports. Several speakers described medical and behavioral incidents handled by school nurses or social workers and argued reductions would risk student safety and increase burdens on teachers.

Budget details and staff estimates: Budget staff asked the board to consider how state allotments, charter-school pass-throughs and federal grants interact with the local request. In the presentation staff said the district believes roughly 88 positions are “underfunded” in the state allotment for 2025–26; restoring social workers and adding nurses would require local dollars. Staff gave line-item cost estimates: about $370,000 to restore the social-worker positions and about $484,000 to add six nurses to achieve one nurse in every school; together that was presented as roughly $854,000. Staff also noted a capital ask that includes a second Apple lease payment of about $1.1 million (one of four installments) and a total capital request near $2.1 million.

Public hearing and comments: Six people had signed up for the budget public hearing portion; later public-input remarks expanded the testimony. Parents and school employees urged the board to keep or restore school nurses and social workers. Carol Harshman, a licensed clinical social worker, told the board: “Please fund our school social workers.” Kelly Muse, who said she had spoken with multiple teachers, emphasized the large caseload nurses handle and noted school nurses “touched over 70,000 incidents” last year; she said teachers prefer keeping nurses over some other positions. Joseph Twilley, a parent of a special-needs student, said some special-education classrooms are already being combined in ways he and teachers say create untenable mixes of student needs and asked the board to press for more resources.

Contract freeze and scope: The board also passed, unanimously, a freeze on new vendor contracts for products and services paid from local current-expense funds while the budget is resolved. The freeze explicitly excluded employment contracts and the enterprise School Nutrition fund. The motion that created the freeze passed by roll call with all seven members voting yes (Jennifer Dacey, Amy Davis, Darlene Gibbs, Lee Kirkman, Lauren Kitzinger, Patty Mason and Lori Spies).

Discussion and next steps: Board members said they want staff to return a revised local budget that shows how the four social workers and nurse coverage would be paid (through reallotting guidance counselors, eliminating or consolidating other positions, or reducing non-personnel contracts). Staff said state allotments (examples cited: PRC 006/007 categories for health and noninstructional support), Title II, ESSER and charter-school pass-through payments constrain local flexibility; staff also noted final state allotments could change during the General Assembly process. The board will review the revised budget and then present a local funding request to county commissioners; commissioners’ action will determine the final local appropriation.

Quotes and attributions: The article uses direct quotes only from meeting speakers listed in the board transcript and attributes statements to those speakers by full name and role on first reference. Example: social worker and commenter Carol Harshman said, “Please fund our school social workers.”

Ending: Staff were given direction to return an updated budget showing the specific reallocations that would fund the requested nurses and social workers; the board will take further action after reviewing the revised figures and after county-commissioner decisions about local appropriations.