By Adam Pagnucco.
More than a year ago, I wrote a five-part series detailing how MCPS regularly transfers money budgeted for instructional salaries towards other purposes. In September 2023, MCPS requested another transfer of $11.4 million out of teacher salary money, which was approved without discussion by the county council. Let’s find out how the candidates feel about this.
Question: Montgomery Perspective has reported on MCPS transfers of millions of dollars out of instructional salaries and towards other purposes. Is this a problem? If it is, how would you fix it?
Lynne Harris, At-Large (Incumbent): I’m never one to rush to judgement, and the Board has been asking direct questions to understand why those object transfers have occurred. As we discussed at the February 22 BOE meeting, object transfers between categories had a sound explanation — teacher salaries had increased so much in the FY24 budget that the Title I grants couldn’t cover them, so other functions serving Title I schools were transferred into the grant, and the Title I salaries — typically covered by that federal funding – were covered by the operating budget. I pushed quite directly the point that the information supplied in the public facing memos simply did not tell the public the story about where funds were going and why, and how the mission was being served.
Finance staff agreed to revise memoranda coming to the Board to include narrative information explaining why funds are being moved between categories, and what – specifically – they are being used for.
It all comes down to intently reviewing the information coming forward from the system, asking clear questions, and staying focused on doing better to be more transparent and accountable to the public.
Rita Montoya, At-Large: The transfer of millions of dollars from instruction salaries to other purposes is a problem because that money is from unfulfilled teacher positions. Each year, instead of carrying that money over to beef up instructional salaries or provide other educator benefits, the money is diverted to some other, previously unintended purpose. This is problematic from an operational standpoint—there is money being taken away from teacher positions—and also a budget allocation standpoint as the County Council and Executive provided recommendations and allocations specific to MCPS’ request yet the money is actually and ultimately going to another category. This behavior lends itself to the view of the Board as lacking in transparency and oversight and makes it challenging to secure the funding needed to fully operate, staff and resource MCPS.
Brenda Diaz, District 2: Yes, it is a massive problem when MCPS transfers millions of dollars out of instructional salaries and towards other purposes. The lack of transparency in the purpose of raising taxes and how that money is actually distributed has led to a lack of trust in the County Council, but most especially in MCPS. When the real purpose of public funds is not revealed, it raises doubts in the community as to how any extra funding will benefit our students. Unfortunately, oversight failures on the part of the current Board of Education means MCEA’s and MCPS’s requests continue to be approved without deeper consideration of how money is spent. I will apply a laser focus on responsible resource allocation within MCPS, including collaborating with the union to draft an attractive recruitment and retention package with the goal of fully-staffing our schools.
Natalie Zimmerman, District 2: Yes, this is a problem. Not only does MCPS need to uphold the contracts signed with the associations, but we need to be attractive to high-quality teachers and subsequently retain them. While the County Council cannot and should not ask for the Board of Education to spend its money in a specific manner, the Board should open up its budget and increase transparency. Every single dollar of the budget must be spent to increase the quality of our students’ learning conditions. As a member of the Board of Education, I will be opening the budget and increasing transparency.
Shebra Evans, District 4 (Incumbent): I want the broader community to know and understand the budget. I also believe it is equally important for MCPS to make notations when there is a shifting of funds between categories. A recent discussion at the board table addressed a similar issue regarding the transfer of money out of the Office of Special Education. The shift was not as it appeared but warranted a discussion to give the public a better understanding of what actually occurred.
Laura Stewart, District 4: It is important that MCPS use as much of the dollars slated for instructional salaries as possible. If for some reason they can’t fill a position, there should be a plan to use that money for another needed instructional position or to the substitute pool, possibly adding incentives to acquire qualified long term substitutes. We need strategies to fill important hard-to-find roles like math teacher substitutes. I understand that there will be a need to allocate money to areas that had not been planned for during the school year, like cost overruns for the health plans this year. This extra cost required a freeze on ordering some supplies for teachers. An adequate reserve fund should be used for this purpose.
Next: Side payments to MCPS employees.
Prior questions: boundary review, grading policy, electric bus contract, MCPS’s biggest problem, experience with budgets, on the incumbents, opt outs for parents, police officers in schools.