By Adam Pagnucco.
The Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), which represents MCPS teachers, has issued a statement of support for Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s recommended FY26 operating budget. Taylor’s budget, requesting a $285 million increase from the county and a $296 million increase overall, is the largest MCPS budget increase in both real and nominal dollars in at least 20 years.
It’s no surprise that the teachers support more money for schools, but the tone of MCEA’s statement is a sharp contrast to their recent condemnations of “austerity” at MCPS. For comparison, check out their angry statements about the budget in May 2023 and March 2024, as well as their sitdown at a county council meeting demanding full funding last year.
Taylor’s budget would require the equivalent of a 12% property tax increase to fund, though the county recently revised its revenue projections upwards and the county’s full revenue picture won’t be clear until March. Nevertheless, the teachers are coming off a strong election season in which they ousted three school board incumbents and more than 20,000 Democrats voted for their slate in the primary. MCEA’s applause for Taylor’s budget combined with their renewed strength at the ballot box and a brewing race for county executive suggests that a titanic battle over taxes is coming in the spring.
MCEA’s statement is reprinted below.
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MCEA Responds to Superintendent’s Proposed Budget
Rockville, MD – The Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent’s recently released operating budget rightly centers the needs of students and educators and promises to deliver critical resources we need for student success.
“We are heartened to see a budget that acknowledges the problems we face and begins to lay out a plan to fix them,” said MCEA President David Stein. “MCEA members have been voicing concerns about these issues for many years, and we are glad the Superintendent is addressing some of them in this funding proposal.”
MCEA was pleased to see that the proposed budget makes special education a top priority, reflected in the budget’s intent to hire an additional 688 positions that are critical to fulfilling MCPS’s stated commitments to provide special education services. “In reality, this funding is merely getting the system to the point where it is fulfilling the previous obligations it made to special education students and their families,” President Stein noted.
The proposed budget also reflects a commitment to recruiting and retaining talented educators by providing wage increases for MCPS employees comparable to those of Montgomery County government employees. “There is a nationwide educator shortage, which means educators have options. They can work in Montgomery County, or they can work for other school systems. We want and need them to come and stay here,” said MCEA Vice President Danillya Wilson.
The proposed budget also includes reductions in Central Services and MCEA is waiting to learn the details before weighing in on them.
MCEA believes the superintendent’s funding proposal is reasonable and prudent, particularly when considering the chronic underfunding of MCPS schools over the past fifteen years. “We’re calling on the Board of Education to adopt the Superintendent’s budget. Once that occurs, we are counting on the County Executive and Council to fully fund the MCPS budget,” President Stein said. “This is a budget that provides hope to thousands of students, families, and educators, who are committed to Montgomery County schools and need to see those commitments reciprocated.”
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MCEA represents more than 14,000 classroom teachers, school counselors, speech pathologists, media specialists and other educators in the Montgomery County Public Schools system; MCEA is one of the largest local affiliates of the National Education Association (NEA) and is a leader in building a new kind of educators’ union that responds to the needs of today’s educators and students. For more information, visit www.mceanea.org.