Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools plans to eliminate four Department of Social Services liaison positions that coordinate foster-care placements, school assignments, and juvenile-justice cases across the district. The positions serve roughly 400 foster students. The board learned Monday that the county — which originally funded the roles and whose court system has warned the cuts would be harmful — has not been told about the replacement plan. Deputy Superintendent Dr. Melissa Balknight disclosed the gap during the board's May 5 budget workshop, a continuation of a spending retreat that began May 3. Board Member Liz Monterrey Duvall had asked Balknight to explain the four positions. Balknight walked the board through the liaisons' role — they sit inside the county DSS office and run what the district calls BID meetings, the coordination sessions that determine which school a foster child attends, what transportation is provided, and what support services follow the student into the building. Mecklenburg County historically funded the positions at roughly $425,000 to $500,000 a year. About two years ago, the county pulled that funding. Superintendent Crystal Hill told the board the county's reasoning was consolidation: the previous county manager concluded the county was double-funding services it already provided through its own DSS operation. CMS absorbed the cost. Now, with a $2.1 billion operating budget already denied 8-1 by the board on April 29 and a $6.6 million salary-uncertainty hedge consuming flexibility elsewhere, the district says it can no longer carry the half-million-dollar line.

The Replacement Plan — and What It Doesn't Include

Balknight said CMS intends to repurpose one of the four positions into a central-office coordinator who would manage the operational workload — BID-meeting logistics, court paperwork, inter-agency communication. The remaining caseload would be distributed to the district's school-based social workers. She framed the shift as an improvement. When she arrived at CMS roughly two and a half years ago, she told the board, 40 of the district's then-186 schools had no access to a school social worker at all. The district has since changed its allocation formula so that every school now has at least part-time social-worker coverage. The foster-care work, she argued, belongs closer to the student — at the school, with a person who already knows the child — rather than in a county office relaying information through intermediaries. Board Member Shamaiye Haynes was not persuaded that the plan had been tested. She pressed Balknight on whether the district had studied the workload the four liaisons carry and how many hours their cases consume. Balknight acknowledged the district had not conducted a formal study. Haynes told the room that the math had not been shown. "We already have a high student-to-social-worker ratio in some of the most neediest schools," Haynes said. "Sometimes you can make a decision to cut out something without a full understanding of the impact." She asked what, specifically, would come off a school social worker's existing caseload to make room for foster-care coordination. Balknight said the central-office position would handle the clerical and operational pieces, and that the district would train school social workers over the summer. But she did not name a task that would be removed.

The County Doesn't Know

The sharpest moment came near the end of the discussion. Chair Stephanie Sneed told Balknight that board members were hearing directly from the court system — the judges and officers who work foster-care and juvenile-justice cases alongside DSS — and that the feedback was that eliminating the liaisons would be detrimental. Balknight responded with the 400-student figure and an admission: CMS had not told Mecklenburg County about the replacement plan. "We have not at the district had a conversation with those folks at the county," she said. "So they are not even aware of what I shared with you — that we do have a plan to hire and we have a plan to do a backfill." She called the failure to consult the county "a misstep." Sneed asked for alternatives before Friday — including the possibility that the county might fund at least one position. Balknight said the district wanted to work collaboratively with the county going forward but acknowledged the collaboration had not yet started.

What Comes Next

Board Member Lenora Shipp asked what happens to the four employees whose positions are eliminated June 30. Balknight said they are school social workers by training and could be absorbed into school-based roles — the same pool that would be taking on their former caseload. The board took no vote Monday. The DSS liaison question is one element of a broader budget negotiation. The board denied Hill's $2.1 billion operating budget 8-1 on April 29 without specifying what to amend. The May 5 workshop was Hill's first opportunity to walk board members through the line items behind that number. The liaisons cost roughly half a million dollars. The district's salary-uncertainty hedge — the $6.6 million set aside for a state raise that three General Assembly bills would price between 3 and 9 percent — costs thirteen times as much. Both sit inside the same constrained budget. The question the board has not yet answered is which obligations it considers non-negotiable.

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