By Adam Pagnucco.
At yesterday’s school board meeting, MCPS management released a potential reductions list of school district positions. The list is due to the county council funding 98.4% of the board’s FY27 operating budget request, which creates the need for adjustments at MCPS.
Here are a few basics from MCPS’s requested budget and presentation.
The school board requested a $190 million increase in FY27, of which $180 million was to come from the county’s appropriation. That increase was intended in part to finance an increase of 84 full-time equivalent positions with a combined cost of $105 million.
The council appropriated a $119 million increase in local money and supplemented it with a one-time contribution of $25 million in retiree healthcare money for a total local increase of $144 million. That’s $36 million short of the board’s request.
Management has presented $50 million in FTE reductions partially offset by $4 million in retirement incentives and $10 million in lapse, totaling $36 million. Lapse is the practice of leaving vacant positions unfilled to save money. It’s important to have vacant positions into which displaced employees can move if necessary.
The reductions list includes 436 FTEs. Some of them are vacant and some of them are filled. Here is the distribution by category.
Central staff: 28 FTE reduction, of which 3 are vacant and 25 are filled.
Support staff: 113 FTE reduction, of which 33 are vacant and 80 are filled.
School-based staff: 295 FTE reduction, of which 126 are vacant and 169 are filled.
The key here is that 274 filled FTEs are recommended for reduction. One question I have is whether MCPS’s existing vacancy count is greater than that number. If it is, employee transfers could potentially accommodate employees who want to stay in the district. If not, some folks will have to leave. But here’s the complication with transfers: many positions require specialized skills. A teacher couldn’t necessarily fill a plumber position and vice versa. A bus driver could not become a special ed teacher overnight. And so on.
The largest single affected classification is special education resource teachers, who would see a reduction of 118.5 FTEs worth $12 million. Social workers would see a reduction of 38 FTEs worth $5 million. These kinds of positions have constituencies that will protest reductions.
Two years ago, MCPS threatened layoffs but then backed off, managing a reduced budget request through vacancies and transfers. The county council perceived the leadership of that time – which is now gone – as crying wolf. Superintendent Thomas Taylor is no doubt aware of these events. We shall see how hard these adjustments prove to be for MCPS and its workforce.
But here is a fact: the news coverage of this will mention “cuts,” “cuts” and more “cuts” with various synonyms like “slashed” thrown in for good measure. I wonder how that will affect perceptions of the school system, the candidates and the county as voters start casting ballots in the primary election.