By Adam Pagnucco.
Last month, I reported on MCPS Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s first recommended budget. It was a historically huge ask for a $296 million (9%) increase, with $285 million coming from county taxpayers. I also wrote a column on his unusual criticisms of his central office. Back then, I did not yet have much detail on his budget.
Now I do. This series will dig in to explore what Taylor really wants to do.
To Taylor’s credit, he has released more information on his budget than his immediate predecessors ever did. There is the 169-page budget itself. There is the full video of his budget presentation along with a condensed version. There is his deck of budget slides. Want more? How about a summary sheet, a reorganization chart and spreadsheets with exhibits.
Has Taylor ever heard of the Police?
While this is a playground for somebody like me, I’m an old school analyst when looking at school budgets. I rely on the state-mandated categories of spending contained in the Financial Reporting Manual for Maryland Public Schools. One can argue about whether these are the best expenditure categories to describe public school spending, but they have five virtues. First, they are mandated by the state. (I guess that’s a requirement and not a virtue.) Second, they are the categories used by local governments to appropriate money for school districts, again a requirement of state law. Third, they are defined by the state and therefore are less ambiguous than many customized budget presentations. Fourth, because they are used by all Maryland school districts, they enable apples-to-apples comparisons across county borders. And fifth, they appear in every MCPS budget going back 20 years (and I bet a lot longer). That enables longitudinal comparisons across time, a key requirement for any data analysis of MCPS.
One can use quite a few approaches to look at Taylor’s budget. The following charts illustrate four of them.
First, this chart looks at the rate of increase for each spending category exceeding $20 million in FY26.
Textbooks and instructional supplies, maintenance of plant, special education and fixed charges (benefits) all stand out.
However, these categories are not equal. Some, like instructional salaries, fixed charges and special education, dwarf the others. So this chart looks at the share of Taylor’s total dollar increase for each major category.
Fixed charges (benefits) and special education are joined by instructional salaries. While the latter is not increasing by a high rate, it gets a lot of dollars since it accounts for more than a third of MCPS’s operating budget. (That’s typical of Maryland public school systems, which after all rely on teachers to do a huge portion of their work.)
Now let’s look at the rate of increase by category of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
Special education and maintenance of plant stand out again. Finally, we examine the share of Taylor’s total position increase for each major category.
This one says a lot: special education accounts for 81% of the new positions that Taylor wants. It’s a colossal commitment that drives a lot of his budget.
Those are the basics, folks. The rest of this series focuses on the details in the categories mentioned above that exert a disproportionate impact on Taylor’s first budget. And then as a bonus, we will look at a couple other things that have a more subtle, but still powerful effect on Taylor’s vision for MCPS.
Stick around for more in Part Two!