Will NC education leaders step in amid CMS turmoil? What state law allows
State education officials have said little about the ongoing turmoil within Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, but North Carolina law gives the state some authority to step in if the district is found to have financial issues.
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The CMS board voted narrowly Tuesday to fire Superintendent Crystal Hill. That decision came days after a memo Hill sent the board alleging attempted extortion and other issues became public. Hill was previously suspended over the summer amid an investigation into her administration that did not find any wrongdoing on her part.
CMS board Chair Stephanie Sneed also stepped down from her leadership position Tuesday, and both the State Bureau of Investigation and the State Auditor’s Office are looking into the district’s finances.
The State Department of Public Instruction “is monitoring the situation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools but cannot comment on any investigations being conducted by outside organizations or parties,” spokesman Philip Jackson told The Charlotte Observer.
“Finance, personnel and school board matters are all managed at the local level in North Carolina,” he said in a statement.
Asked if the state has the authority to take over a troubled school district, Jackson directed the Observer to a statute that says the State Board of Education can require school districts to report on their finances.
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The same statute says the state board is responsible for ensuring local school boards comply with state laws and regulations. If a local school board “willfully or negligently fails or refuses to comply” with the law, the state board can issue a warning and make the local district take remedial action.
And if the local school board still isn’t compliant after the warning, the state board can take control of the local board’s finances and appoint an administrator, according to the statute.
The state board has exercised those powers before. It took control of Halifax County Schools’ budget in 2015 to make the district comply with an earlier court order addressing academic performance issues, WRAL News reported at the time.
State legislators also introduced the Innovative School District program in 2016, which allowed low-performing public schools to be turned over to an outside group, such as a charter school operator. But the program fizzled out by 2022.
Asked if Mecklenburg County, which funds a significant portion of CMS’s annual budget, can seek more oversight over the district due to recent events, spokeswoman Suzette Nedrich said the county “will maintain a watchful eye on events as well as updates from partners.”
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This story was originally published September 25, 2026 at 5:30 AM.
