Budget Information - Updated SAE 6/3

[Anonymous]

As a central office employee, I can attest that some positions are not needed. My previous position was not needed. My current position is. We should cut CO positions before school staff. Walk arou d Rocking Horse, Spring Mill, CESC, and you will see people giving 50% of their time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a central office employee, I can attest that some positions are not needed. My previous position was not needed. My current position is. We should cut CO positions before school staff. Walk arou d Rocking Horse, Spring Mill, CESC, and you will see people giving 50% of their time.

Thank you for your honesty

[Anonymous]

Do principals have to cut someone in ADDITION to the .6 staff development teacher cut, or is it the SDT plus cut another .4?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If MCEA received this today, why aren't they sharing it with ALL MCEA members then?

Don't believe this until I see it posted somewhere official.

https://www.mceanea.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/Moran-Notification-Letter.pdf

[Anonymous]

I'm stunned that MCPS made unaffordable agreements with unions for pay raises and benefits and now can't afford all the staff they promised them to. Just stunned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that MCPS made unaffordable agreements with unions for pay raises and benefits and now can't afford all the staff they promised them to. Just stunned.

Teachers need pay raises. They already cannot find special education and STEM teachers. There are many areas that they waste money - such as the DEI initiatives. Many programs such as SESES are run inefficiently.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the reduction in SDT to 0.6.
What will they do for the 0.4 piece? Teach? How many classes will that be per SDT?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the reduction in SDT to 0.6.
What will they do for the 0.4 piece? Teach? How many classes will that be per SDT?

Two

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the reduction in SDT to 0.6.
What will they do for the 0.4 piece? Teach? How many classes will that be per SDT?

This is a blueprint mandate that all Maryland counties have to implement by 2026 (I think). MCPS is just implementing it early to save money. The blueprint is responsible for many of the budget issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop allowing criminals with “emotional disabilities” and illegal immigrant parents in our schools.

Do this and you will reclaim at least 1/3 of the budget.

Let the prisons pay for them.

It isn’t PC, but this is a fair point. There is a lot of money going towards this population and there is a limited budget. The influx of undocumented immigrants has clearly had an effect on the MCPS budget and needs to be addressed. You can’t have a legit conversation about the financial situation without discussing this aspect of it.

+1

It’s hard to have a conversation about this because it’s fraught with strong emotions on both sides. It’s a conversation we need to have.

Emotions are not why this is a hard conversation to have. It's a hard conversation to have because one side wants a unicorn and one side is aware that unicorns do not exist.

That is, one side would like to stop educating undocumented immigrants and the other side is aware that educating all children is a federal and legal mandate.

I mostly agree with you, but Montgomery County is so focused on building affordable multifamily housing and very little single family housing. Guess who that attracts? And we have all these programs to support low income people. It's well-intentioned, but that means they all want to come here and we shoulder more of the burden than other counties. And then the state wants more and more local dollars to go to support these populations, especially Montgomery County since we are so "rich". Yet we haven't grown economically since 2017. Which means raising taxes is the only way to keep paying for the things people want, and you can only do that so much before it starts working against you.

Can’t deny this is true. And needs to be addressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop allowing criminals with “emotional disabilities” and illegal immigrant parents in our schools.

Do this and you will reclaim at least 1/3 of the budget.

Let the prisons pay for them.

It isn’t PC, but this is a fair point. There is a lot of money going towards this population and there is a limited budget. The influx of undocumented immigrants has clearly had an effect on the MCPS budget and needs to be addressed. You can’t have a legit conversation about the financial situation without discussing this aspect of it.

+1

It’s hard to have a conversation about this because it’s fraught with strong emotions on both sides. It’s a conversation we need to have.

Emotions are not why this is a hard conversation to have. It's a hard conversation to have because one side wants a unicorn and one side is aware that unicorns do not exist.

That is, one side would like to stop educating undocumented immigrants and the other side is aware that educating all children is a federal and legal mandate.

No, the unicorn is expecting MCPS schools to absorb hundreds of thousands of poor, non-English speaking students from all over the world (not just Latin America at this point) and expect good results. That simply cannot happen and our teachers and schools are clearly overwhelmed by the influx.

You can keep pretending that this has not affected our schools and that it doesn’t cost exorbitant amounts of money, but that is simply not realistic.

Our political leaders have made decisions that have led us to this situation, where our schools and neighborhoods are overwhelmed. That needs to be discussed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Who has the authority to fire Hull and Key? Felder? BOE?

Confused why people are blaming Hull for this.

The budget was in fine condition before McKnight left in February. The MVA and other programs were restored, there were no talks about RIFs or not honoring new contracts, county council was on track to approve the budget request (or at least a large portion of it) and they publicly praised Hull and the budget department for more transparency and collaboration then they had seen in years. Then Felder came in and ruined it with her ego, stupidity, and her two cronies - Key and Johnson.

MCEA is blaming him for his mismanagement of funds. He’s WASTED millions on useless contracts. I think he getting kickbacks. Makes no sense otherwise.

Speech and language pathologists are useless contracts?

MCEA is just mad that there's a trend toward providing services through non-union contractors. This is true across the country. It's a byproduct of the pay scales that unions have negotiated over the years.

Speech Language Pathologists, obviously not useless. But we need full transparency on what the contracts cover and why, since there has been such a huge increase over the last 2 years. Another post somewhere here says that contracting was used to cover the Superintendent's holiday party. As a taxpayer, unless there was some huge savings associated, I would not consider that appropriate. I work for a government entity, and our holiday parties are pot luck in a conference room.

Right. These contracts are not limited to sped and speech. Millions alone spent on terrible curriculum that teachers hate. You know how much the curriculum was before - it was free and many teachers have gone back to using that -at the secondary level-after mcps went behind their backs and renewed the contract despite teachers begging them not to. Millions WASTED.

[Anonymous]

This is very true. I have worked for MCPS for over 25 years and the demographics have changed dramatically. Not only does it effect our schools, it trickles down to Headstart, Child Find and Infants and Toddlers. We need interpreters for meetings, papers that legally need to be translated and there is a larger number of special education services that are being needed at an early age. We have a lot of resources in Montgomery County for early intervention and people are coming to use those services.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop allowing criminals with “emotional disabilities” and illegal immigrant parents in our schools.

Do this and you will reclaim at least 1/3 of the budget.

Let the prisons pay for them.

It isn’t PC, but this is a fair point. There is a lot of money going towards this population and there is a limited budget. The influx of undocumented immigrants has clearly had an effect on the MCPS budget and needs to be addressed. You can’t have a legit conversation about the financial situation without discussing this aspect of it.

+1

It’s hard to have a conversation about this because it’s fraught with strong emotions on both sides. It’s a conversation we need to have.

Emotions are not why this is a hard conversation to have. It's a hard conversation to have because one side wants a unicorn and one side is aware that unicorns do not exist.

That is, one side would like to stop educating undocumented immigrants and the other side is aware that educating all children is a federal and legal mandate.

No, the unicorn is expecting MCPS schools to absorb hundreds of thousands of poor, non-English speaking students from all over the world (not just Latin America at this point) and expect good results. That simply cannot happen and our teachers and schools are clearly overwhelmed by the influx.

You can keep pretending that this has not affected our schools and that it doesn’t cost exorbitant amounts of money, but that is simply not realistic.

Our political leaders have made decisions that have led us to this situation, where our schools and neighborhoods are overwhelmed. That needs to be discussed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop allowing criminals with “emotional disabilities” and illegal immigrant parents in our schools.

Do this and you will reclaim at least 1/3 of the budget.

Let the prisons pay for them.

It isn’t PC, but this is a fair point. There is a lot of money going towards this population and there is a limited budget. The influx of undocumented immigrants has clearly had an effect on the MCPS budget and needs to be addressed. You can’t have a legit conversation about the financial situation without discussing this aspect of it.

+1

It’s hard to have a conversation about this because it’s fraught with strong emotions on both sides. It’s a conversation we need to have.

Emotions are not why this is a hard conversation to have. It's a hard conversation to have because one side wants a unicorn and one side is aware that unicorns do not exist.

That is, one side would like to stop educating undocumented immigrants and the other side is aware that educating all children is a federal and legal mandate.

No, the unicorn is expecting MCPS schools to absorb hundreds of thousands of poor, non-English speaking students from all over the world (not just Latin America at this point) and expect good results. That simply cannot happen and our teachers and schools are clearly overwhelmed by the influx.

You can keep pretending that this has not affected our schools and that it doesn’t cost exorbitant amounts of money, but that is simply not realistic.

Our political leaders have made decisions that have led us to this situation, where our schools and neighborhoods are overwhelmed. That needs to be discussed.

I’m not disagreeing with you, however, I don’t think this is an issue that can be changed at the local level. Once they are here, they are entitled to the same services as any other child. This is a federal immigration issue. Honestly we don’t even have it that bad, yet. I know other states have much bigger numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that MCPS made unaffordable agreements with unions for pay raises and benefits and now can't afford all the staff they promised them to. Just stunned.

Stunned at what? They probably were 100% positive they would be 100% funded at their demanded level.