By Adam Pagnucco.
Accountability. We hear this word from county leaders All. The. Time. But when the time comes to actually impose it, the concept is nowhere to be found as the cash spigots open wide.
The latest instance of this occurred last week, when the county council’s Education Committee (Chair Will Jawando, Gabe Albornoz and Kristin Mink) unanimously agreed to give MCPS an extra $49.5 million on top of the $128 million increase recommended by County Executive Marc Elrich. If the full council approves the Education Committee’s addition, the combined amount would be one of MCPS’s biggest increases in the last 20 years.
In return for that, what did the Education Committee get? Read their press release. Can you find anything other than vague hopeful statements? I can’t. I also can’t locate a specific commitment MCPS had to make in order to get the money.
In any other industry – real estate, finance, health care, IT, you name it – when someone agrees to give you $49.5 million, you have to agree to give them something – a BIG something – in return.
Why can’t it work that way in county government?
Look, MCPS deserves robust funding. Its success is critical to the success of the county and right now its performance is in question. But there should be no blank checks for them or anyone else. Subject to the constraints of state law, the county council is the ultimate funding authority for county agencies. And before sending extra taxpayer money to the school system that is permanently baked into its budget via the state’s maintenance of effort law, the council should insist on accountability with that money. Here are a few ideas.
Improve college and career readiness.
A month ago, I wrote about MCPS’s disappointing college and career readiness measures, which turned out to be the number two story in April. I get that MCPS has some legitimate issues with that data. Well, OK – ask MCPS to devise a better measure, establish targets and promise to hit them. After all, if the school system isn’t getting students ready for careers and college, then why are we giving it $3 billion a year?
Improve literacy and math.
A year ago, I wrote about how MCPS had established a program that generated promising results in improving literacy at a heavily Black and Latino elementary school but later stopped work on it. Before this year’s budget process kicked off, a group of former county council members, former school board members and prominent citizens asked the county executive to push MCPS to restart it. In testimony on this year’s operating budget, the county’s Black and Brown Coalition also asked the council and stakeholders to “hold each other accountable” and push investments in literacy and math. Considering that these efforts partially used private grant funding, revitalizing them is a small ask in return for nearly $50 million of taxpayer money.
Get serious about cracking down on antisemitism.
MCPS’s problems with antisemitism go back more than a year and have generated outrage among Jewish organizations and a federal complaint. One school board candidate even sent out a mailer about it. Seeing as how the feds just might insist that MCPS take more action about this, it’s an easy lift for MCPS to devise a plan with implementation dates to do more about antisemitism in return for a big funding increase.
Stop wasting money on crisis management contractors.
Does MCPS really need six-digit expenditures for a crisis management contractor? The Beidleman scandal is in the courts now, the prior superintendent is gone and MCPS already has a 35-person, $5 million Office of Communications. In return for 50 million bucks, can we please have less of this kind of spending?
Stop transfers of teacher salary money.
For many years, MCPS has transferred millions of dollars of money originally budgeted for teacher salaries towards other purposes and transferred another $11.4 million last year. Under state law, the county council has authority to approve these transfers – and does – but here is the problem: the transfer request is made after the fiscal year has ended and the money has already been shifted. MCPS should make this commitment on the front end – money budgeted for paying teachers should actually be used to pay teachers.
Montgomery Perspective has many readers who know a lot more about MCPS than I do. I’m sure you have great ideas of your own!
Now I know what some of these council members will say because I have heard it before. “We don’t have line item authority over MCPS. We can only appropriate in broad categories. The school board is responsible for them. We can’t dictate to them.”
This is the language of weakness.
Political negotiations don’t depend solely on authority granted by statute. Like all other negotiations, they depend chiefly on LEVERAGE. Parties who understand negotiation bring the leverage they have to bear when they bargain. In this particular case, the council’s leverage is the dangling of this extra $49.5 million, which the school system (and its unions) would love to get. A savvy politician – say, former Senate President Mike Miller – would say, “You want the money? Great, but in return you have to do this, this and this. If you agree, it’s a win-win and we’ll heap praise on each other in a lovey-dovey press conference. If not, I have a long line of other people who would love to get that cash.”
That’s the way of Annapolis, Washington, the private sector and the rest of the world. But apparently not Rockville. It was not always this way. In 2016, the council approved a ton of extra money for MCPS but told the school board it had to cut class sizes. The school board agreed.
Are today’s council members the equals of their predecessors?
Look council members, you love to talk about accountability, and that’s a good thing. Here’s your chance to actually get some accountability by using the leverage you possess. Throw MCPS some cash but get something specific in return. Otherwise, you can keep spraying money for inadequate results and then explain to all of us why we need another big tax hike when the next recession comes.