By Adam Pagnucco.
Part One outlined the largest increases in Superintendent Thomas Taylor’s recommended FY26 operating budget. Part Two examined fixed charges (employee benefits). Part Three looked at special education. Part Four looked at textbooks and instructional supplies. Now let’s look at maintenance of plant.
The Financial Reporting Manual for Maryland Public Schools defines category 11 (maintenance of plant) as “Activities concerned with keeping the grounds, buildings and fixed equipment (other than student transportation assets, which is to be included in category 209 – Student Transportation, and furniture and movable equipment, which is to be included in category 210 – Operation of Plant), in their original condition of completeness or efficiency through repair, scheduled and preventive maintenance, or replacement of property.” Included are supervision; upkeep of grounds, buildings, and fixed equipment; and vehicle maintenance services other than student transportation.
MCPS has more than 200 buildings in its system, making it one of the largest landlords in the county. Complaints about heat, air conditioning, mold, vermin, air quality and other problems are waaaaay too common and I bet Taylor has heard a lot of them. Check out the four slides from his budget presentation dealing with maintenance problems… but only if you have a big bottle of aspirin at hand.
This quote is worth emphasizing: “What happens if this trend continues? We are nearing a cliff and if we don’t change direction soon, recovery will be even more costly.”
How bad is this problem? Back in 2005, a county taskforce estimated MCPS’s infrastructure maintenance backlog at $430 million. In that year, MCPS spent $27.4 million on maintenance of plant. A year ago, another county taskforce estimated MCPS’s infrastructure maintenance backlog at $1.09 billion, a 154% increase in 19 years. For comparison, the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria CPI-U rose by 56% over the same period. That means MCPS’s maintenance backlog has been rising at three times the rate of inflation over the past two decades. (Spoiler alert: This problem is even worse in other parts of county government as I will detail in a future column.)
All of this explains Taylor’s recommended 20% increase for maintenance of plant, which is exceeded among large categories only by textbooks and instructional supplies. The chart below shows the percentage of the MCPS operating budget going to maintenance of plant since FY05. If Taylor gets his way, the school system will be devoting a larger share of its budget to this need since before the Great Recession.
Next: compensation.