By Adam Pagnucco.
J. Wellington Wimpy, the gluttonous character in Popeye cartoons, loved to say, “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Would the county council give Wimpy that burger?
If so, they might find their way out of their current painful budget impasse.
Few people have ever craved hamburgers more than Wimpy.
As I have previously reported, Council President Natali Fani-González postponed straw votes on the capital and operating budgets that were supposed to happen yesterday. Eight of the eleven council members must vote to approve the FY27 operating budget. As of yesterday, those votes were not in place.
The biggest sticking points are taxes and MCPS operating funding. A net tax hike on homeowners passed on a 6-5 vote that would lower income taxes by $38 million but would pay for it by repealing the $140 million in Income Tax Offset Credits (ITOC) received by homeowners, thereby netting $102 million in extra revenue. Meanwhile, the council has so far managed to fund six of ten tranches for MCPS of $18 million each, a total increase of $108 million. According to Superintendent Thomas Taylor, that’s not enough to avoid eliminations of positions and/or shaving the district’s labor contracts with its unions (one of whom is the mighty teachers union).
Some council members don’t want more taxes. Others want to give MCPS more money. Those two objectives are hard to accomplish simultaneously. Hence the impasse.
One idea floating around is this option. Part of the money raised by repealing the ITOC ($35 million) is supposed to finance cash in MCPS’s capital budget for three projects: HVAC, roof replacement and outdoor play space. Here is how council staff describes this money:
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- HVAC (Mechanical Systems) Replacement: MCPS
- Roof Replacement: MCPS
- Outdoor Play Space and Athletic Infrastructure
These three projects were each proposed by MCPS for substantial increases in the FY27-32 CIP. None were impacted by MCPS’ non-recommended reductions preliminarily supported by the Council. The reconciliation assumes that these three projects are fully funded at MCPS’ proposed increased levels from the Amended CIP for the first four years and then at lower levels (although still with increases from the Amended CIP) for FY31 and FY32. These increases are partially funded with $35 million (of the $44 million in additional current revenue) made available from the Council’s Income Tax/ITOC changes made on May 8th ($20.7 million in HVAC, $5.0 million in Roofs, and $9.3 million in Outdoor Play Space).
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That $35 million could be removed from MCPS’s capital budget and then used to finance two more tranches for MCPS’s operating budget. That would bring MCPS to eight of ten operating budget tranches and might help Taylor avoid personnel adjustments.
But there are two problems with this approach. First, no one questions that MCPS has huge facility needs, especially with regards to HVAC systems. Just last year, the PTA president at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School told the school board, “Every single staff member and student is breathing in mold” at her school. Wootton High School in Rockville is in terrible condition, which is one reason why the school board decided to close it and relocate its student body to Gaithersburg. So that $35 million is desperately needed and the actual costs of real progress are much higher.
Second, that cash is a one-time investment when put into the capital budget. But if it is instead used for MCPS’s operating budget, it would be permanently locked in there because of the state’s Maintenance of Effort law. This is tantamount to using one-time revenue for ongoing spending. Many on the council criticize County Executive Marc Elrich for doing that, but they did it themselves last year when they used a diversion of retiree healthcare money to finance their budget.
See how complicated this gets?
If J. Wellington Wimpy were in charge of the budget, he would favor this approach. It’s more spending without any more taxes. It would solve the impasse but make next year’s budget even harder. But hey – free burgers!
And Tuesday? Well, that’s another day. And if it gets to be Tuesday, there’s always Wednesday. And Thursday.
Eat up, folks!