By Adam Pagnucco.
Back in September, I wrote a post about the powers the school board has over the superintendent. Those powers are substantial and include the ability to remove the superintendent subject to appeal to the state. But what about the county council? Does it have any power over MCPS?
The council’s most cited power over MCPS is budgetary. The MCPS operating and capital budgets, like the budgets of other county-affiliated departments and agencies, must be approved by the council. However, that approval is constrained by state law in two important ways.
First, the council does not have line item authority over MCPS’s operating budget. Under state law, it must appropriate under broad categories of spending such as administration, instructional salaries, fixed charges (which includes benefits) and other state-defined categories. (You can see more detail on this in the state’s financial reporting manual.)
Second, the state has a maintenance of effort law which has grown more complicated under its recently passed Blueprint program. One of the key provisions of this law states that “the county governing body shall appropriate local funds to the school operating budget in an amount no less than the product of the county’s enrollment count for the current fiscal year and the local appropriation on a per pupil basis for the prior fiscal year using enrollment count.” So on a per pupil basis, this year’s spending level is next year’s spending floor unless the county gets a waiver from the state. And that’s not easy to obtain.
There is one more power possessed by the council that is rarely discussed. State law allows the Montgomery County Council to remove school board members. Here is the exact language from MD. Education Code § 3-901.
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(g) (1) The Montgomery County Council may remove a member of the county board for:
(i) Immorality;
(ii) Misconduct in office;
(iii) Incompetency; or
(iv) Willful neglect of duty.
(2) Before removing a member, the County Council shall provide the member a copy of the charges against him and give him an opportunity within 10 days to request a hearing.
(3) If the member requests a hearing within the 10–day period:
(i) The County Council promptly shall hold a hearing, but a hearing may not be set within 10 days after the County Council sends the member a notice of the hearing; and
(ii) The member shall have an opportunity to be heard publicly before the County Council in the member’s own defense, in person or by counsel.
(4) A member removed under this subsection has the right to a de novo review of the removal by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County.
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The state school board can remove local school board members in other jurisdictions and the state superintendent of schools may remove members appointed by the governor in Baltimore City and Caroline and Harford counties. The Mayor of Baltimore may remove appointed members in that city. Otherwise, I find nothing in state law allowing other county councils or county commissions to remove school board members. The Montgomery County Council’s power appears to be unique in Maryland.
I have never heard of our county council actually removing school board members. Then again, I had never heard of the council forcing out an entire planning board, but that did happen more than a year ago.
And so if any council member says that the council has no control over the school system, you now know just how much control they have under state law.