001All right, it is 4:15. We are going to start right on the dot. Um, we will hear forth from an update on the organization and market uh compensation study. These words are killing me today. Um, and so welcome Dr. Matillo, Mr. uh, McMater, and our guests that are here. So, Dr. Matillo, I'll kick it over to you to get us started. That's great. Thank you, Chair Swanson. I'll provide a a brief introduction as well as introduce our guest and um, Mr. Carter as well. Um, but today, the board, we're here to present an update on the district's compensation study as well as the organizational study. These are two separate studies done by two different contractors. The organizational study is focused on central services staffing levels and the compensation um study includes positions in both central
002services and schools. Both studies are not yet finalized but are nearing completion. So we know the board wanted an update during this budget development cycle. So we are here today to provide a fairly brief highle summary of some of the initial data and the findings. Um just to reiterate brief high level initial findings waiting on um on the completion of what should happen soon. After today I understand a plan is where we we will begin really using existing structures like finance committee to dive deeper into the data as it does become finalized. Um we will start with the organizational study if that's okay. Um and Nona from improve will be presenting for her team. Um, but before I turn it over to Nona, I do want to acknowledge and introduce Terrence. Terrence is our senior
003director for salary information systems. Um, and a director on his team, Kelly Johnson is sitting over there as well. May help answer some questions as we go along. Just a special thanks to Terrence and Keller. We've really been working hard and directly with both our contractors on both facilities to get them a lot of what they need so that they can do the work that um that we have them or contracted with them to do. So we will have an opportunity to hear directly from MGT who is our compensation um contractor but that will be what they complete the study. So uh Miss Alman if you're ready I'll be turning the presentation over to you. >> Thank you so much AJ. I'm just getting over a cold so I luckily I have my voice back
004but um hopefully you can hear me. It's noon Alman the president of improve LLC. Uh I was back here 30 years ago um for Dr. Jim Serat um doing a very similar study was a full performance audit of all of central office staffing uh as a managing director there leading our K12 practice. Since then I've continued to work with over 50 educational agencies in 23 different states. My goal is to build management capacity of state and local education agencies focusing on strategic planning, operational improvement, and use of technology. Currently doing an AI governance project in the Scott County School District of Nevada, rolling out AI governance for the state of Rhode Island. There's a lot of AI out there and it can help improve productivity. So, it's going to bring us to the work for
005today. Thank you very much, Ford, for having me here today and for the district administration who has been very helpful and we've been interviewing them. we'll discuss what we've been doing, but it's been a very um it's a lovely district and happy to be back. So, I guess the agenda today is we'll briefly review our project team, the scope and objectives of what we did today, our approach and methodology, uh and a little bit about the high level benchmarking and staffing data that we have so far and answer questions. As AJ mentioned, it's a very preliminary review. We're still waiting on confirming some information from the division leaders and then we'll be back to present a full report. As I mentioned, I am the um project lead and I focus as well in areas of
006technology, HR, finance, facilities and operations and academics. Um Carrie Monitz, who would have liked to have been here today, is actually traveling with her husband in Europe. Um but she was our day-to-day project manager. She focused on academics, the schools and communications. And then Monica Sanchez focused on uh the chief of staff area, facilities and operations. I worked with Karen at KPMG 30 years ago. Monica 20 years ago started with the school district of Philadelphia. you have like a very highly experienced team in operational efficiency reviews for school districts. In terms of our project scope and objectives, the key question we're here to ask is are your central services operations staffed at levels to support efficiency and adequacy. Um we are particularly focused on the board priorities of operational effectiveness and achieving aims 13 through
00718. We really use those aims as a guiding direction. Are you able to deliver the services that you need to with the staff that you have? We looked at staff over time over the past five years. We did an extensive review of um industry standards and how your staffing levels and key positions compared to those as well. And we also looked at areas of uh improving organizational alignment. In terms of the scope, we looked at all central office staff. Um we used the data from Oracle. There's 2,882 staff in those seven divisions as of 2026. As you can see, that amount is 14.4% 4% of the total um staff of 20,000. So it's a very, you know, small percentage of your total staff. Go to the next slide, AJ. Um what the centrally positions are,
008many people think it's people at central office and they don't know what they do, but really what central office does is they're there to support and guide the schools. All their work is dedicated for those causes. And a lot of times you think that people that are actually officially listed in central office are also those people working in schools. They don't just aren't just spending their day all day in central office. So it's the special education related service providers are you know occupational therapy physical therapy coordinating teachers for title one instructional support technicians your DLC's the maintenance workers the school bus drivers custodial managers. A lot of those people are listed as being at central office but actually spend most of their time in schools. terms of our project approach and methodology. So, uh, phase
009one was project logistics and planning. We started kind of in the September October area and then we had a major kickoff early in November and since that time we've been collecting a lot of data interviewing school staff reaching out looking at industry standards u really doing a lot of position mapping and reviewing the organizational charts uh against the um Oracle staffing data looking at ratio analyses and then kind of trying to triangulate all of those data um and at this point we have submitted some um a final information request in the context of draft chapters and we're waiting to confirm the final data with the division leads um before producing our draft report and then final report. In terms of our analysis approach, we looked at the Oracle system data as our authoritative source of
010data provides data for all staff that are currently have positions. It's not vacancy data. It's not budgeted positions. It's the actual field positions is what we looked at. We looked at 5-year trends um from 2020 to 2021 to this um to 2026. and we've compared workload drivers um across that time. So looking at enrollment increases relative to staffing increases. As I mentioned, we did the benchmark analysis, looked at the industry standards. We'll go over a few of those with you. In terms of managerial spans of control, we like the McKenzie archetype methodology which looks at the number of people that are supervised to their supervisor and depending on the complexity of the work can be lower or higher. So they have like a player role, coach role which would be one to like three or
011four people versus a coordinator role which might be up to 20 and that's for for more standardized work. What can you reasonably manage with the span of control the number of people that report to you. In terms of the industry benchmark services, I'll just give you a minute to read this report, but for every one of the divisions, we used very reputable industry sources for the industry standards. So, I'll just let you have a chance to look at those. So, overall what did we find and again this is preliminary very preliminary findings. Let's go to the next slide. So, um as you can see the first line is operating budget. We looked at um these five districts. you are 14th or 15th largest school district in the nation depending what source you look at and
012these other districts Shelley Mechberg is the closest one in North Carolina and then Dallas, Fairfax, Gwynette and Montgomery are also um around that like you know 10 to 17 um 17 size. I know you I've seen this in your budget book so I know you're familiar with these um districts. You look at the total enrollment they're around 160,000 um to about 182,000. the operating budget per student, as you can see, you're significantly lower than everyone else, even lower than Charlotte Meckllinburgg. Um, and then if you look at overall students per all staff, you're at eight students per staff, which again is a much higher ratio. So more students per staff than everyone else. Um, and usually staff is in a district, half of those are teachers. You also have your class sizes are on the
013higher end. You know, 15 students per teacher versus let's say like a Montgomery or Fairfax at 13. So, um you know, you can see here that staff you're getting a lot for your money in terms of the amount, you know, of of what you're spending. Um but it comes at a cost, you know, when you spend, you know, less per pupil. So, let's go to the next slide. Um and some of it comes, you know, from your staff. So if you look at total enrollment, it's grown 3% over the last 5 years. Um, and staff has only grown 2.3%. You can see the student to staff ratio. So overall, your staffing growth has lagged your enrollment growth. Go to the next slide. Um, overall many of your departments are not staffed to industry standards. Um,
014I provide some examples here. I think most people are aware there's a national bus driver shortage. You guys are no exception. Um, but even given the shortage, your routes are still like 117 miles per route versus the industry standard of 70. The maintenance workers, the industry standard is 100,000 square feet. Per maintenance worker, you're 200,000. So like, and that continues across multiple trends. Like HR, you have 0.5 a.5 person. So halftime person for every 100 employees. If you run a company, you know, that's not a lot. I just think about it. whereas the industry averages 1.5 to two um FTEES per 100 employees. So in in many many areas you are you know staffed at half the levels of comparable districts. So I would say overall you're comparable to but in many respects later than
015those of your peers. Next slide. So the next uh step is we compiled a list of draft findings. Um we still had some questions on information uh that we don't have. We are trying to compare apples to apples. So looking at contracts that like how many people are in contracts versus you know just to make sure our ratios are correct and so we're waiting for some final information on that and we always need to meet with the division leaders to make sure we've captured their workloads accurately. We'd like to do some additional pure benchmarking once we've met with them and um made sure these are the priority workload measures and then hope to come back and finalize the report. So happy to take any questions. >> Great. Well, thank you for providing this and we're
016going to dive into this because this is perfect timing as we just discussed our budget proposal. So, um we'll start with the vice chair and then um Mr. and Dr. Joe, thank you for starting to lay this out. Um I'm very excited to see this report. You mentioned you were going pretty quick. So, um, you mentioned some of the standards, the industry standards, you mentioned the methodology. Let me see if I can real quick. Is it the McKenzie >> architect? Yeah, >> is all of that going to be spelled out in plain language in the final report? because this is a report that when it comes out, I want everybody in Wake County to be able to see. We want to be able to hand it to our, you know, colleagues, uh, or our counterparts
017in Wake County government, the North Carolina General Assembly Assembly. I want to mail them copies of this to so they understand how needed we are. Um, thank you for doing this work. I'm I don't really have a question. I'm just really excited uh to to learn more. Do you have a time frame of when you'll be back? I mean, when I think the next month or so, we should be able to next couple two months tops be able to finalize. >> Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't have any real questions. I'm just very excited about this. This is this is good governance right here. >> Yeah, it's very detailed. So, there's a it goes into a lot of detail. Um, I have a good executive summary for you. So, thank you. >> Thank you,
018Mr. Chair. Um, again, I'll echo Mr. Hershey's remarks. You know, we've been looking for information like this for some time. I like the approach. I like how it's it's put together. Um, I'm hoping you'll have, you know, all of these, you know, broken down by department and kind of like take a deeper dive than what we've got here. Is that right? >> Yeah. very much deeper dive. >> Okay. And so just to make sure I understand when we talk about um instructional you know um instructional services within like our entire district that's a lot is what does that encompass? I'm looking at slide 15 when you're talking about um you know many departments are not staffed to ind industry standards. school counselors. Um we're looking at psychologists like special ed and all the support folks
019the guidance counselor and I'm sure our director of academic services can provide the scope of who those people are really all about school support services education instructional services. >> Okay. So that's all included in the All right. Thank you. And then one last thing, and it's just a little thing, but I'm I'm curious when we go up to the top and it's you're uh presenting a project scope. You identify in the organizational by division, superintendent's office, and board of education with 17 uh FTE. Can you identify who those employees are or what position? >> So, the nine are you guys? So, nine, >> right? And then the others are in the superintendent's office. >> Okay. I was saying 17 seemed like a little much, but I wasn't counting. We weren't sure where to put you.
020We weren't sure where to put you. >> Could be maybe a separate line as a government entity. So it does not include us into the organization or maybe that's a little bit later. >> I just I was just trying to get the definition. So I appreciate it. Thank you. >> You don't want anybody to think you all work for me just over here. I was like Allan, Miss Phils. Um, Susanna miss like so where do we get these other so Dr. Yeah, >> thanks. >> Thank you for this. I'm also enthusiastic about just very bad cold right now. Um, just off the off the top of your head, uh, for the the departments and staffing compared to industry standards, were any departments above industry standards? >> There were a few areas that were higher in
021departments, not departments overall. And that might be an area to reallocate people. Um, we're still waiting for feedback from the division. So, I want to make sure that's right. But, yeah, there were a few position types where you might be able to reallocate from one position type to another. >> Okay. And there were some that were lean like financial services is lean. I think it was three people for every hund00 million of budget and the industry standards is like 3 to eight. So, like they're adequate but lean. >> Yeah. >> Communications was one um FT for every 17 schools. Like I worked at Greenwich Public Schools. We had 15 schools and we had one communication. She was really busy. So like 1 to 17 is is lean but it's doable. >> Follow. Okay. Um M
022R did you have? >> Yeah. Okay. M R. >> So I don't even know if we can answer this question but you know I'm going to slide 13. We have a $2.23 billion budget. Charlotte Meckllinburgg billion budget >> 2.03 know three whatever billion dollar budget whatever right okay were you saying their funding source is that coming from their county I'm trying to figure out yeah it would be like our budget uh state local and federal uh we'd have to go back and look at what portion of that is state funding which is going to be based on ADM uh they will certainly get I would imagine a higher amount out uh for federal programs like title one because they are uh have a much higher free reduced lunch ro than we do. Then I think
023that remaining portion would be the local funding. Uh and then at that point we can compare uh what our local per pupil amount is versus theirs. Um and I don't I don't know what theirs is. I would imagine it's probably higher than ours. Uh but ultimately we've got uh 21,000 more students uh and not much more funding, >> right? and and I'm I'm looking and then it just for me it just saddens me to see the students for staff and then we're getting ready to increase it just because of the conversation that we just talked about and I'll just continue to carry that conversation again about embedding wellness into this district to help them manage what now data is telling us is happening. And if we don't make that a priority, I don't know what
024that's going to look like when it concerns staff if we don't take that into um make it a major priority of figuring out what simple things we can do to increase morale to um uplift um staff well-being and ways to help students cope with having more students in class with less attention where needed. and for staff to manage all these different um styles of learning with minimum money. So I I just I'll continue to with priority Dr. um yes thank you. Um thank you for the information. Um and this more kind of a comment in uh also kind of going along with Miss Rice. I mean you know the um you know we we are working relatively leaner than other school systems and you know in some ways maybe they can learn from us in
025terms of how to be more efficient, right? Um but at the same time, you know, what can we do as a as a way to help our staff be more um you know uh effective maybe you know utilizing AI in in some ways that can uh you know not not all the physicians will be able to utilize AI but certainly some of them can be can utilize AI to help them streamline some of their work workload and um so yeah I mean I think uh it's important to think about you know in the in in the setting that we are in what what can we do to >> just to build on that point according to McKenzie they believe AI can achieve 30% productivity improvement so to your point it could help alleviate you know
026some of the burden but definitely not enough >> will will your report make recommendations on or comparisons and or recommendations on how our organization is structured I just wanted to um follow up and say um kudos to Dr. Matillo and team and staff for getting this report done. I know been asking for it. I know since I've been on the board uh for the last couple years and doing it and at least bringing us a a good highle overview of what to expect. um that I like data, you know, right? >> So, thank you. >> Are there any other questions? >> If you wouldn't mind going back to slide seven for a minute and you kind of went through that super fast. if you can just just kind of slow that back down a little
027bit and kind of go over you you gave us some numbers and I'm not sure was that on slide seven that you gave us the numbers the breakdown you gave us some examples of how we compared >> that was the second to last slide okay >> this slide 13 with the comparison >> that one Uh well, no, not the dollar amount. Um you were talking about like you were giving, unless I heard you wrong, I thought on slide seven when you went over some of these roles, you were saying as compared to some of your other peers, that was this. This one is that people who are reported central office actually spend most of their day in schools even though they're reported as central office folks. And these are examples of those positions. The second
028to last slide is the one where I was referring to the industry standard benchmarks like the industry standard for maintenance workers is 100,000 square feet per maintenance worker. You guys are 200,000. So that's where I'm not sure if that is that what you mean for the >> Yeah. No, I thought as I was writing something I was trying to catch up and write at the same time and I just thought you had given us some comparison to some of our peers in how we rate with either a shortfall or over on some of these roles. I mean, we all know that we're short on bus drivers. We're short on custodial managers. All of these things that are listed here, we've been talking about them for >> slide 15, right? Cuz she was talking about the
029miles per bus route and she talked about gave a few numbers on this one. That looks a lot like that slide. >> I'm sorry. You are right. We're still waiting to confirm data so that's why we didn't want to put it down but okay superintendent each have around 22 schools and I mean just think about you have 20 days in a month you can't even visit if you spent every day and a half day visiting you get to each of them once in one month and maybe two hours in the afternoons and that's on all the other work you have to do like some of it's just look at the data and see that it's not you don't have enough people to potentially deliver on the areas that you have and you have to take
030into account like how many principles are new versus and how many schools are in distress because that will increase the workload. But um there we we took the standard industry and then we looked at other contextual factors. >> Okay. So you're going to give it in the in the final uh final report that you give us is going to kind of break it down so that we can see. >> All right. Thank you. And then my only other question is on slide 14. Um, and this may not be necessarily for um improved for for that, but when we're looking at these numbers, it gives us a chart. Well, first I think 2025 to 2026, we're not we weren't at 162, we were at 160, right? >> Yeah. Around 161. That probably comes from uh what
031DPI would thought within our numbers. Um but our actual um count is is a little under that. So >> 16510 I think. So we were at instead of it being like 3% increase it's actually more like 1.75 >> if that's the difference. Yeah. >> Okay. And then my >> we compared it to 202122 >> right >> yeah so that's that's what I was referring to. So it's not quite as high as three. My question because I know that this has come up in many conversation that I had is our and this may come in your report and explain where all of this is but I'm trying to see the increase between our budget from 2021 to 22 to what we have now looking at the 1.75% increase in students with the amount of funds that
032we spent in our budget. And I'm not sure if it's going to come back in our report, but I'm just curious, is it a lot more rolls that we have added cuz it's a pretty it's a pretty big difference in budget from 21 to 25 and it's only 1.75 of our increase in students. >> Miss, can you help me understand how you got your numbers? I'm trying to calculate. So, when I look back at our our prior um budgets, right, it said that we had 160,510 students. >> I think that might be PMI, too, not total enrollment, but I we'd have to check. >> Okay, that's what I pulled out of one of our budget books. >> Which year? >> 25 to 26. >> Was that >> I'm sorry. Nope. Nope. Let me take that
033back. That is in this year's budget saying 25 26 to 27 on do we know what the 162 is total enrollment is for max 2. Yeah, because the numbers we've been given. So, we will go back and check the tornado in the library. >> Yeah, that's not where I saw it, but yeah, that's what's in our our current book, the current budget that we have right now. >> So, could you ask the question one more time? I know it's about >> So, I'm just is the report going to show because we have a significant amount and the majority of where our funds come go in our budget is towards staff. So we can get a breakdown of where the difference is because our budget from 2122 was way different from what it is now >>
034total budget. So I'm just trying to see if we're increasing our budget from 21 >> new schools opening lots of them. Right. >> I know like salary salary going up mandated salary going up >> like number of roles and stuff like that. Is that going to be broken down in the report or is that just going to be whoever is in central office and you'll have to break that down? >> Maybe look at central office. We can look at that data as well. >> Okay. >> I think I'm just having a hard time kind of understanding and maybe you bring that I I'm just not able to pick up what you're putting down and that's maybe just a me thing. But I would say if you're talking about the increase in the budget from one
035year to the next, uh then a lot of that is going to be associated with salary increases um uh benefits that go up. Uh other cost of doing the exact same work that increase. Obviously, I think we probably since that time opened seven maybe eight additional schools. and and we had dollars that >> was there for 21 22 23 24 million in race less driver CNS pay >> so there's some significant compensation correct >> and a lot of that is you can look at the weight government what they've given us over the last five years which has been a significant amount of money >> yes so I was just asking is this report strictly just to the dollars that are being spent central office or comparing it to the whole so we see the differences.
036>> Well, mainly you can just get staffing levels organizational study. >> We're not doing the compensation compensation >> and we can definitely before the final report is issued verify numbers and make sure we're all aligned on the student enrollment and such. >> Okay. Do >> you have a additional follow up? >> No, thank you. >> Thank you. So um in the final report if it's possible to make the point how I don't know how to anyway we need to understand the public needs to understand that Fairfax, Montgomery County, some of those other states are funded very differently. I think it's different to look at us compared to Charlotte or Guilford because we are sharing in the same vein at being ranked 50th in funding level in the state of North Carolina last in the US.
037Montgomery County, Fairfax County, they don't have that experience and and you know, so I think that's an essential point that needs to be made somewhere in the report. So, and that may be the plan already, but if not, please. Yeah. Yeah. >> Um, yeah. So, to go along with that question, I was just wondering which among those that column of schools peers um have taxing authority. Um, >> yeah, that makes a big difference, right? >> Yeah. May I? >> Sure. I I don't mean to imply that we shouldn't compare ourselves to these comparablesized districts. It's just that that is a critical detail for people to understand is how different the funding structures are in different states. So, I appreciate that it's here. I'm not implying in any way we shouldn't look at them, but just
038you have to have that added layer of understanding. Thank you. >> Yeah, we'll make sure that we add that. I think what we tried to balance was we just don't have a ton of peers in our state. So we wanted to try to find some larger peers within state but then also agree. So yeah, >> there any additional questions as relates to the organizational um organizational and staffing stuff and that as Dr. Matillo indicated and even Mr. Peter and the full report will be broken down and be lifted up in um the budget and finance committee meetings in the fourth coming months once we get through the budget to take a deeper dive and to really tease out the data and let the data tell the story for WCPSS. So thank you for giving us
039this highlevel summary and looking forward to reading and taking a deep dive and engaging in some conversations with this. >> Thank you for having me. Thank you to the staff for doing an amazing job with the data. >> Thank you. And we're going to turn over Terrence. Um he's going to go through an overview of the market study. Same thing highle overview. >> All right. Good afternoon everyone. Again, my name is Terrence McCarter, uh, senior director for sound information systems. Greetings to you all. Thank you for this time. Uh, we conducted, as you know, the conversation study as well, and it was simultaneously occurring. And I wanted to go over um as staff uh some of the initial findings that we have worked with. U before that, we want to give kudos to um MGT.
040Uh that was a contractor that we worked with for this conversation today. has some experience uh working with K12 public sector government. Uh they also have experience working with larger important groups as well. Um so they've um they've been able to jump in and kind of have an understanding of the magnitude of our district when it comes to making these types of decisions and working through compensation. Um for our discussions with NGT, we're not to share this update and give you a status of the study. uh while the report is not quite final, we are providing the board and just you all an update on where things stand and some of those findings and that is our goal. So our our outcomes uh we would like for this to show you that um you know
041what what methodology we use uh for our survey and then also um a comparison as far as wages and salaries and how we collect that data and then um we will this afternoon note some strengths and concerns and then also provide the next steps and the main goal was to again review the salary and wage data. Um we did select some comparable school districts. Uh we looked at Wake County government. Uh and we also reached out to some private sector some private sector and I'll give you a little bit more context around that as well. And we want to explore market and competitiveness of Wake County for central services and schoolbased benchmark positions. Uh we also want to look at the uh recommendations that may come from NGT for compensation plan that is internally equitable
042but also externally competitive and informed by the key fun study. So without further ado, we're going to jump right into some reduced information. First, I wanted to highlight that um in order to do the study, we were to work with NGT on different positions that we would include in the study used for um compar comparison. If you look at the screen or or at your laptop, we selected these certified positions and out of all the positions that we have in our district, we have upwards of hundreds of positions. In our contract with his team, we were just narrow down to 56 positions. So on these next two slides, you'll see how we narrow down. This is our certified group. Um so it includes teachers teachers of special ed counselors principles aiologist speech language pathologist psychologist
043and our PT group and so um that was certified and then on the classified side I won't read all of these but in the makeup of 56 these are the classified positions that we looked at in the study along with MPT and what we wanted to do was do across all grades uh from grade 17 to grade 30 and some of intentionality behind narrowing down to 56 was looking at not just central source or school but both. So we wanted to make sure we had positions such as bookkeeper and data manager which are in the schools but also our craftsman our technical specialist as well as um in the technology department. So in narrowing down from the few couple hundred positions that we have in total to 56, we wanted to make sure we covered
044a wide range uh a diverse range of position groups that covered and also um look at you know what position groups are larger, what position groups are um more likely to be comparable to other positions in different districts. Um so we wanted the data to be reliable and to have great um get great feedback from other districts. So, um, the ones in bold you'll see are, as noted at the bottom, those are what we consider benchmark positions. So, of the 56 positions, we looked at 28 and they're referred to as benchmark positions. So, the 28 positions that are in bold um on this screen are positions in which we call a custom market survey. WT use these positions of B uh in order to look at comparable peer districts some local and I'll go into
045that in the next slide but some local and some out of state as well as county government and then also um private sector company as well. So, we wanted to do a custom market survey with these with those 28 uh benchmark positions and that gave us more uh regional data, more data specific to the actual salaries of those comparable um organizations. All of the certified positions that you saw on the screen were included in the benchmark. So, they're part of the 28 and in addition to the ones in bold on the screen. And I will say that all these positions the 56 we um were analyzed uh using the comp analyst salary.com tool that um you have a question. >> I did before we went to the next slide if you have uh a analysis
046or a high level summary of what the the salaries are for those grades from grade 17 to grade 30 just the the range if you have any. Yes. So we um I employ Yeah. So, our grade 17, for example, would start at um 1775 an hour, which is about for a 12-month employee, just shy of 37,000, and then going up to grade 30 would start at 255 an hour, which is about for a 12-month employee just shy of 53,000. um and then with experience you know could go up to just shy of 78,000. Thank you. So um as I I was sharing the 56 positions were all were uh analyzed using the comp analyst uh tool that NGT uses to look at our regional location. Um and it it is they have staff that analyze
047the data and it's pulled monthly. And what the comp analyst data does it um allows you to pick a niche. So what was used by NGT was um positions in Raleigh region uh only education industry organizations uh they looked at employee groups up to 7500 to 15,000 and the data was pulled for our report here from November 2025 and that's you know along our progression of working with NDT. I will say that um you know it is updated monthly but we had to you know use a point in time in order to do this work. So all 56 positions were entered into the continentalist tool in order to give us our comparisons of the data of the percentile 50th percentile of salary ranges minimum and maximum and I I'll go into that now and as
048I've shared the 28 benchmark positions those are the ones in which we use the custom market survey in which NDT reached out directly to those organizations to get information on their salaries and those are listed on the left. Um so the districts we use uh Chapel Hill Carbo Corvo Charlotte Meckllinburgg uh Don public schools Fairfax Guilford Gwynette Johnson and Wake County Governor um we did look at uh let me share with you we did look at uh some others that did not respond. Uh Cumberland did not respond. um Nukem the company did not respond just to name a couple. So and out of the 10 or so that we uh reached out to we did have these that responded. So per NGT as they shared with us, this is a good response of of salary
049information um that have this many districts and what kind of government provide information to us. >> Yeah, I was I was concerned with some of the non-responses, but they they indicated that our survey response rate was was actually strong compared to what they typically see. Um, one additional uh, private sector was Red Hat. We did reach out to Red Hat. Uh, we did not get a response there. And as you may expect, private sector organizations are not as responsive when it comes to salary information. Um, that's a little bit more held to the chest than um, where a public sector would. So, um, we we did understand that they were not surprised that we weren't able to get as much from private sector. All right. So um on this slide just some additional findings uh
050from MGT. We wanted to going to go into what we were seeing in the data from collecting the um information. And so what we saw um initially is that great county public schools is not behind the market across the board. Um however compression is a recurring pattern that we see. So in our compensation structures what what happens is we may have employee groups where minimum salaries their entry points are closer to the market but as um years go on this uh weakens retention value because we fall off maybe towards 8 or 10 years uh in which an employee is here. So whereas you may be competitive in um getting staff and hiring staff here as they become veterans u the market we fall behind and that's that happens quite often and I'm going to so
051can I just go back to the first real give you a quick breath so I did want to hit this the second part of that bullet where initial findings maybe were not uniformly behind the market but what they're finding is there is this issue of a concentration of gaps and roles that are hard to recruit move forward and hard to retain. So an explanation they gave, for example, is it may not just be a plumber that's below market. It's all of those trades in general that that may be below market. So the final report will kind of tease that out and show where sort of clusters of position that might be below the market. And then yeah, even where we're maybe more comparable with the market as a starting place. um you know over time
052we we don't grow with with years of experience with folks and you know we've talked um for several years the board has about an impression at some of these both within the bands and within the different policies or or um salaries themselves so um lose ground with those comparable agencies like I said when employees hit 8 to 10 years uh that's when they're able to maybe have competition to maybe find something elsewhere um so we want to look at that as we move forward. Uh and this did appear to hold true among certified positions as well as instructional support roles and central services positions as well. Um, in addition to that, one thing specifically noted about NGT was that when they looked at the Wake County government positions and they did those comparisons, they saw
053that what we just talked about with the compression was especially uh visible in finance roles, um, skilled technical and facilities positions and also leadership roles as well in which it was noted. Um I will note from from here that the pressure from the private sector is the most pronounced in uh trades, skill trades and facilities roles, our IT roles, our technology services roles but as well and also our professional and technical roles as well like um administrative jobs, front office jobs in schools, accountants in our finance department. So a lot of those they've been we face that type of pressure of trying to compete when it comes to salaries. Uh the trend was most glaring when you look at the comp analyst data as that came back. It was most glaring because it looked at
054the overall region of Alarm. Um you can see those discrepancies and I will also note the last bullet uh MGT did not formally study our benefits uh package and plan. However, they wanted to note and continue to note that that is something to consider when it comes to maintaining competitiveness. Um our salaries may trail our peers for many roles. But we also want to make sure we continue to look at the value of our benefits and keep that in the conversation. So that is something that was noted. Um just some areas of strength. I'm just providing some examples. I will note that this is not all of the find it. These are some examples. Um so if you look at the first bullet some of these are noted as areas of strength because salaries in
055those roles are closer to the market and and they help kind of public schools remain competitive for essential operational staffing and that would be like your custodians your IIA your data managers some CNS work roles are closer to the market however um as we noted before this is an entry point so they went out whereas they may enter and have competitive salary again as the years go on and that's where we have those concerns of of the depression or falling behind the market. >> I'd add on that one too, you know, closer to market doesn't mean we're where we need to be or where or we're exceeding where we are for these roles, right? It's just they have to find, you know, they're going to look for some relative areas of strength. And um, you
056know, I don't want to leave the table thinking, oh, we're good with custodians, I da managers, we don't look at their compensation. is just when they looked at everything together that was a more relative variant of strength and to Terren's point you know at the entry level um but still we know our scales don't grow um like and um this you know while this is noted as an area of strength uh it does not always translate to long-term retention we wanted to note that as well as we see that you know we lose that ground and so on slide nine Um the these are where there were some noted areas of concern salary. And again, these are just some examples and not all of the um the certificate cases. But the first bullet notes that
057skill trade and technical specialist roles are especially vulnerable due to um the salary discrepancies. And this includes like our master craftsman, our master craftsman and HBAC, the work the chillers, all of those roles that um have are very specialized. Uh they're very vulnerable because we compete directly with county government. Um you know especially private sector and many times trade and technical workers have other options for roles in those industries. So um that was definitely noted as their concern. Also one of the the widest gap are the principles in other leadership roles such as APS um they show some of the largest gaps relative to similar roles in other districts. So um salaries of our principles on our salary schedule over time has fallen behind many of the districts that were used in our comparison. So
058that was noted and then this was noted a little bit earlier but our finance budget and senior administrative roles are foundational to the organization but yet uh they are also uh an area of concern because they do not compare favorably to other public sector matches including so this leads to uh the risk of turnover u instability if um did not address. So regardless of when the changes are implemented, uh one of the notes from the area areas of concern is to ensure that we continue to have regular um maintenance of our salary schedules and u ensure that we continue to review this on a frequent basis. Um and then next steps uh just briefly. So our next steps are to finalize the study report and work with MGT. We want to make sure that's finalized
059and this will be shared in the coming weeks. And then also we want to as a team and and working with you all in our committee meetings uh look at the compensation recommendations that are presented from NGT and review those in those committee meetings and I'll use that to inform some of the decision-m uh and also determine if there's any potential adjustments to compensation and then where and how that will be funded and also um separately we want to continue to work with NGT on this deeper analysis to ensure that uh whatever pressure points we may feel as to the district when it comes to compensation that we refine those and we continue to keep an eye on those findings. So in closing um this study gives us a clear understanding of where the pressure
060points are and just the existence of pressure points and uh when we compare our compensation for certain positions to peer agencies as well as other areas of the market. The initial results of the study underscore the need to address compression issues in certain roles to improve our ability to retain valuable employees with higher levels of experience. The results also confirm that we are not as competitive as we need to be in the compensation we offer for critical positions and skilled trades such as master. And finally, these results highlight why target targeted strategic adjustments and a regular review of our compensation structures matter if we're to recruit and retain a high quality staff. I appreciate the time for questions. >> Yeah, I just want to take a moment to thank Ter and Kelly for really working
061with MGT. You know, while they are our consultants and do the work, they spend a lot of time getting them the data that they need. Um, and we will have MGT come. I think we get one visit from them. So, we wanted to make sure that their one visit was when the report was finalized. So, again, I appreciate Terren for working with them to try to get some, you know, just initial information. And again, this is very initial. They'll have a detailed report as well um that they will be able to present and come out. And I just, you know, after we just sat in the budget um discussions, we know this is not the moment to bring forth compensation increases, but I think we are getting the report at a good time so that
062for future budget development um cycles, if there is an ability, we'll have the data that that we need to to make informed decisions. So, um, happy to answer any questions we have. >> I just want to thank you all for the work that went into this and juggling multiple things. And so, thank you for your energy and time into this. I know that this uh is not an easy discussion given to what you just referenced, Dr. Mutello, but it's also important for the public to understand where the competition lies. Um, and if we want to make sure that our buildings are upkept and that our uh maintenance and operation is is moving the way it should, we have to see where the competition is. So, um, I saw uh, I share the Herty Hershey. >>
063Hershey is having the two Hes. >> I mean, I purposely try to dress differently than this guy so we don't get confused. I saw that. So, we'll start with Mr. Heaggerty and then Thank you. Um, I really appreciate all the work and everything that's gone into this report. I know it's one that we've all been waiting for for quite some time and I want to make sure we can maximize the utility of the report and the work that we do. And so to repeat a point that Mr. Hershey had made about the previous report, I think the presentation of the report and the language in it is going to be important. If we look at like page four or sorry slide four and slide five, we see the report covers a lot of different positions.
064And if we look at each of those positions across different experience levels compared to different peer groups and table after table after table, that's going to be an extensive amount of valuable data. But what's going to be more valuable to us and to the public, to our colleagues, to counterparts of county government is if there's analysis that goes along with it. Not simply the reporting of the data, but what does this mean? Right? So where they can find trends. Hey, we have found that and you pulled this out in some of the slides, some of those big picture things, you know, that bus drivers, even though there's a national shortage, we're still following, you know, falling, you know, you know, behind market or where there's compression issues. You could show you know just to understand
065if you only look at that top line our entry level teachers at this level might be making a competitive salary but then 5 10 years down it you know there's there's a real problem that needs to be addressed. I'm just pulling some observations just pulled out of this one but just my big point is that I'd like to make sure that the report we get from the consultants has some analysis and it's not just tables of raw data so that we can all be on the same page. Thank you. >> Yeah. To um Mr. Art's point is making this easy to digest for the public that they have to that people who don't live in this world can see they're going to see that we're super lean organizationally generally speaking that we are we would
066like to be able to pay people more. So all the false narratives that have been out there about we're bloated, we're topheavy, we're paying too much. this and that are if people are looking at it objectively and reading then all of that goes away. So that's really important. I'm really hoping and I'm going to have to answer this now but I'm really hoping that staff is finding these reports really valuable and will I hope it's something that um you know obviously as a board we're going to use and I'm hoping that staff really is embracing these and um getting the message out there. I don't actually have any questions. Nice job. looking forward to seeing the specifics of it and and sending it again to you know I say send it to Wake County government
067not to do anything but just to let them know because I and they have the information that we have it's it's a great thing for them and also to let Jones Street know and to continue to let them know and send this with the organization will report to you know all of those people down there that this is what they're doing I will get vacation. Any other comments or questions? All right. Well, not seeing any um looking forward to these ongoing discussions and um thank you for presenting this to us and I I I think I just want to echo and you know it's I think that's going to be out there for folks to digest. it's going to be up to them to figure out if they want to utilize or keep lifting up
068those those narratives. And so it's our job to what I used to say in the classroom to lead the horses to the water, but you can't necessarily make them drink the water. And so um thank you all. And with that, Dr. T. But no, I I just appreciate uh the board's feedback and certainly the work that has gone into both of these studies. And I agree that uh this is the information that we want our public to have. Uh, and I'll just add your comment about uh my grandmother told me a long time ago, you lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And so our trick is the salty along the way. So they'll Thank you, Mr. Chair. >> I think I'm two for two for these analogies today. So I
069know what I'm going to be next meeting because, you know, it might be a little jacked up. But with that, I will entertain a motion to consider to go into close session to uh for the recent statement of the agenda. Thank you for that reminder. >> Motion to pass it. It's >> a motion by vice chair Hershey. >> Seconded by Miss Rice. All those in favor of returning to close session, let it be known by the sign of I. Same signs. The eyes have it. We're in close session.