By Adam Pagnucco.
I have summarized the campaign finance reports of county elected officials and MoCo’s state legislators in prior posts. Let’s look at the school board, which has three seats up for election this year.
The table below shows summary stats for the incumbents as well as two filed challengers for one of the at-large seats. One at-large seat (now occupied by incumbent Lynne Harris), the District 2 seat (Rebecca Smondrowski) and the District 4 seat (Shebra Evans) will be on the ballot in 2024. The other seats will be filled in 2026.
First, these figures demonstrate the rock-bottom fundraising typical of school board candidates. Back in September, I calculated that the mean cycle total raised by winning board candidates was $17,940 since 2010. It’s incredible that candidates can get through both a primary and a general election with that little money, but so it is with school board races.
Second, the three incumbents up for reelection in 2024 raised $30.16 for the entire year combined. All of that was due to one contribution by Smondrowski to herself. I kind of understand this. Given everything going on in MCPS, what are these incumbents supposed to say in fundraising calls? “Hey, MCPS could be worse?”
Third, the challengers – former District 7 county council candidate Sharif Hidayat and former General Assembly aide Fitzgerald Mofor – have very little money themselves. And this points to perhaps the greatest asset possessed by the incumbents: school board positions are so low-paid relative to their responsibility and MCPS is in such dire straits that few people want these jobs. (At the moment, board members are paid $25,000 per year with an additional $4,000 for the president.)
Here are a few tidbits from the campaign finance reports.
On April 10, 2023, Smondrowski paid a $1,000 late fee to the State Board of Elections for sending in her 2022 Gubernatorial Post-General report 28 days late. Late fees are common but this one is larger than most. (District 1 incumbent Grace Rivera-Oven paid two late fees of $100 each.)
District 5 incumbent Brenda Wolff paid $1,800 to Wellspring Restorative Therapy Services, LLC on November 15, 2023.
Wellspring describes their services this way:
WRTS incorporates holistic practices such as aromatherapy, music and art therapy into evidence-based practices to achieve healing. Counselors work with individuals, families, and groups to improve mental well-being. We utilize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as tenets of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy to treat many disorders. In addition, we specialize in addressing trauma related to childhood trauma to include emotional, sexual and physical abuse as well as post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) experienced by many of our military heroes.
Wolff described the expenditure’s purpose as “professional – accounting.”
Wellspring’s home page. Does this look like accounting services?
On January 23, 2023, Wolff reported spending $830.24 at Azucar Restaurant in Aspen Hill. The purpose was “meeting expenses.” Restaurant expenditures are sometimes incurred by fundraisers but Wolff raised no money last year or the year before.
Overall, the incumbents look like sitting ducks for any competent candidate who wants to take them on. So far, only one of them (Smondrowski) has filed for reelection and just two challengers have filed for the at-large seat.
The candidate filing deadline is February 9. What names will appear on the ballot this year?