Buncombe schools outline districtwide position-allotment plan; custodial formula pilot completed

Buncombe County Schools staff told the Board of Education on March 13 that they are building a districtwide position-allotment manual to allocate staff by formula and to increase transparency, equity and budget predictability.

The manual will hold formula-driven allotments for roughly 40 positions, district Chief Financial Officer Tina Thorpe said, with the goal of completing formulas by December 2025 and implementing them in the 2026-27 school year. "These allotment formulas will be housed in a BCS allotment manual, which will be reviewed and published on an annual basis," Thorpe said.

The district presented the allotment project as an internal, standardized way to assign positions to sites and departments rather than a change to state allotments. Thorpe said the work builds on examples from other North Carolina systems and national standards and is intended to make staffing decisions objective and auditable.

District staff described the process as four steps: inventory current staffing rationale; research external practice and legal requirements; decide whether to change allotments and what data the formula needs; and publish a one-page allotment…