By Adam Pagnucco.
On Friday, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) blasted the county council’s decision to fund 70% of the school board’s requested increase for MCPS. The union said that the council voted “to effectively defund the Montgomery County Public School district.” Are they right?
That depends on how you define “defund.”
Let’s understand MCPS’s budget process. Each fiscal year begins on July 1. Shortly afterwards, MCPS begins developing next year’s budget, which is first expressed in the superintendent’s recommended budget in December. In February, the school board makes changes to the superintendent’s budget and sends a requested budget to the county executive. On March 15, the county executive sends a recommended budget to the county council, which includes a recommendation for MCPS. In May, the council approves a budget which includes MCPS. And in June, the school board formally adopts a budget based on the council’s approved budget. The process then repeats the following year.
MCPS’s budget contains four broad revenue sources. The first and largest is the local contribution, which is the county’s appropriation of local tax dollars. The second is state aid. The third is fund balance, which uses leftover money from last year to fund next year’s budget. The final category is everything else, which includes federal aid, enterprise funds (like food), grants, fees and other income.
The table below shows the superintendent’s recommended budget from December. The superintendent wanted a budget of $3.155 billion, which was $235 million more than last year. Remember that number: $3.155 billion.
In February, the school board released its budget request, which included $61 million more than the superintendent’s. The primary reason was that state aid was revised upwards by $55 million because of Governor Wes Moore’s budget, which was submitted in January. The school board also requested $6 million more from the county. The table below shows how the board’s budget compares to the superintendent’s.
The county executive recommended that all but $7.5 million of the board’s request be funded. The table below shows the board’s budget and the executive’s budget.
The table below shows the draft approved budget passed by the council as of this writing. The council reduced the local contribution but increased the federal/other revenue category because more federal money came in. The council’s budget is shown in comparison to the FY23 MCPS budget and the superintendent’s recommendation.
The table below shows every version of the FY24 MCPS budget so far so you can follow it through its changes.
So is this defunding? It’s true that the council approved less money than was requested by the county executive and the school board. But it’s an 8.4% increase over last year and it contains $9.6 million more than the superintendent said she needed in December. This may be less of an increase than what was desired by the school board and the executive, but it’s not a cut.
The reactions of labor and management must be evaluated differently. The teachers union thought the superintendent’s recommended budget was inadequate and said so back in December. The union went on to press the school board to raise it by $145 million. The board did add $61 million to the superintendent’s recommendation largely through increased state aid. So whether one agrees with the union or not, give them credit for consistency. If they did not support the superintendent’s budget, they were never going to support a budget that was slightly higher.
Management, on the other hand, has nowhere to go. They were prepared to live with a $3.155 billion budget, which is what they recommended. The council gave them $9.6 million more than that. It’s preposterous for management to make predictions of doom, gloom and cuts when they are getting more money than what they originally requested just six months ago. If management can’t run the school system on more than their own recommended budget, the council will eventually ask whether they should be running it at all.