By Adam Pagnucco.
Shortly after the county council passed a 4.7% property tax increase in part for the purpose of funding their budget, the school board gathered for an apocalyptic meeting. Dire talk of cuts filled the room. Never mind the fact that the council passed a larger budget than the superintendent recommended in December – it fell short of the even larger budget that would have been anchored by a 10% property tax hike. School board members did not restrain their criticism as reported by MoCo360.
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“Rest assured that what happened [with the budget] this year has consequences, and those consequences affect the most vulnerable members of our community,” school board member Grace Rivera-Oven said at a May 25 board meeting. “I’m hopeful that next year, we’re going to be able to do better…”
Superintendent Monifa McKnight said during a recent work session that the school district will not reduce its efforts to recruit additional staff, support ELS students and bolster math and literacy instruction in the face of a documented post-pandemic plummet in proficiency.
However, other budget areas are at risk of being reduced or eliminated. “Out of necessity, some things must go,” McKnight said during the work session…
“While this is a gloomy day because we have so many cuts we’re making and such a difficult year coming up, we’re going to make the best of every penny. Our students are counting on it,” [Board President Karla Silvestre] said.
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So there must have been some huge cuts, right?
Actually, the council voted to give MCPS its biggest budget increase in at least 20 years.
Let’s set aside the rhetoric and go to the budget books. The MCPS operating budget’s three largest components are contained in three county budget schedules. Schedule B-2 lists MCPS’s total budget. Schedule C-3 lists intergovernmental revenue – money from the state and the feds – that MCPS receives, which is its second-largest revenue source. And Schedule A-6 lists the county’s contribution to MCPS’s current fund, which is the school system’s largest revenue source. It is the latter money that the county government directly controls.
Let’s start with MCPS’s total operating budget. The chart below shows the dollar increases in MCPS’s total operating budget since FY05. All amounts are actual except for FY23-24, which are approved.
This year’s $245 million increase was the largest dollar amount in the period, eclipsing the last time the county raised property taxes in FY17 ($135 million) and the robust increases under Superintendent Jerry Weast. I mention Weast because he was famous for uniting the unions, the PTAs and the Washington Post editorial board and muscling through big money increases from the county government. Only the Great Recession threatened his supremacy.
The chart below shows percentage increases in MCPS’s total operating budget over the same period.
This year’s 8.4% total increase was again the largest in the period, even greater than the Weast years.
Now let’s zero in on the county’s appropriation to MCPS’s current fund, which is the part of the schools’ budget under the direct control of the county council. The chart below shows the dollar increases in county money to MCPS’s operating budget in FY05-24.
This year’s $156 million increase was easily the largest in the period. It is a huge rebound from the terrible days of the Great Recession, when the county administered painful cuts to MCPS three years in a row.
The chart below shows percentage increases in the county’s appropriation to MCPS’s current fund over the same period.
Yet again, this year’s increase (8.5%) was greater than in FY17 (7.3%) and the Weast years of FY05 (7.2%) and FY07 (7.7%). During the latter two years, former County Executive Doug Duncan was running for governor and plowing as much money into the schools – and the rest of government – as he possibly could.
It’s a worthy debate about whether MCPS is getting all the money it requires for its legitimate needs. Of course, the rest of the government – and society – has needs too. But it is utterly beyond the pale for MCPS officials to talk about cuts when they just got their largest budget increase in at least 20 years. Such talk will not find many sympathetic ears inside the council building, that’s for sure. Going forward, they should tone down the rhetoric and concentrate on spending this money effectively.