Any news on the public school budget for MoCo?

[Anonymous]

I thought that in mid-March there would be some important discussions about the proposal. does anyone know anything?

[Anonymous]

It gets covered pretty thoroughly in the Gazette (gazette.net). Leggett's proposed budget is level funding for the schools. It's $1.4 billion or so, the same as last year. It's $82 million less than what the school asked for. Now it's in the Council's court. They don't have a lot of control over the school budget, though. For example, they can't make teachers take furloughs. The school board has to vote to do that. Right now Weast has said he'd cut about 170 teacher positions, among other cuts, if the funding stays the same. No talks of furloughs instead, which would anger unions. And the union issue, across all of County government, is going to be a HUGE issue this year. So stay tuned.

[Anonymous]

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It gets covered pretty thoroughly in the Gazette (gazette.net). Leggett's proposed budget is level funding for the schools. It's $1.4 billion or so, the same as last year. It's $82 million less than what the school asked for. Now it's in the Council's court. They don't have a lot of control over the school budget, though. For example, they can't make teachers take furloughs. The school board has to vote to do that. Right now Weast has said he'd cut about 170 teacher positions, among other cuts, if the funding stays the same. No talks of furloughs instead, which would anger unions. And the union issue, across all of County government, is going to be a HUGE issue this year. So stay tuned.

MCPS teacher here...The cuts will occur even at schools that are well over capacity. Anticipated class sizes (going by projected numbers school principals have received) will be as high as 30 students per class at the upper elementary level at my school. Supporting staff/para-educators are losing hours as well.

[Anonymous]

This is just sad. I understand times are difficult, but it seems that we are facing permanent deterioration of public education in this country.

[Anonymous]

My daughter already has 35 kids in her 5th grade math class..how do we go up from there??

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, increasing the class size is the simplest way to address the issue. So we should expect just that. It is coming to a point that I feel compelled to start looking for decent and reasonable private school. The problem is not quality of public school today, but the trend we are observing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter already has 35 kids in her 5th grade math class..how do we go up from there??

Oh my gosh -- what school is that?!

[Anonymous]

At our elementary school in North Potomac area, the librarians and media specialist have had their hours cut. The library/media aid was eliminated all together. Currently, we have parent volunteers that help out in the library. The official plan now is to plug the holes with these volunteers. We (parents) are NOT happy and feel taken advantage of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, increasing the class size is the simplest way to address the issue. So we should expect just that. It is coming to a point that I feel compelled to start looking for decent and reasonable private school. The problem is not quality of public school today, but the trend we are observing.

Well, good luck with that. The privates are scaling back, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our elementary school in North Potomac area, the librarians and media specialist have had their hours cut. The library/media aid was eliminated all together. Currently, we have parent volunteers that help out in the library. The official plan now is to plug the holes with these volunteers. We (parents) are NOT happy and feel taken advantage of.

Just to clarifying terminology which can be confusing: the media specialist is the librarian and the media assistant is the aide. Important to clarify because Weast DID NOT include media specialist in his list of possible cuts, which is why many were totally blindsided. Apparently at "smaller" schools (<500) there will only be 3 positions for staff development, reading specialist, counselor, and media specialist, so 2 of those positions will be reduced by .5 at the principals discretion. It's crazy that these positions are lumped together since half of them don't even work with students. Many of the schools have already or will also have their media assistants cut by at least 1 hour/day if not cut down to 4 hours/day. Scary times ahead for our school libraries...

[Anonymous]

I'd much rather see furloughs and benefits changes than cutting positions. The rest of County government has taken that hit the past few years. Why can't teachers?

[Anonymous]

Leggett Balances Budget on the Backs of Workers
March 15, 2011

Joint Statement of MCEA, SEIU Local 500 and MCAAP

Earlier today, County Executive Ike Leggett released his recommended FY2012 Operating Budget. As proposed, this budget would force damaging cuts in school programs and imposes harsh cuts in compensation for public employees.

The MCPS Budget

Leggett proposes cutting the Board of Education’s budget request by $82 million. Local funding for MCPS would be at the same level as in the current year – despite an increase of 3,300 more students than funded in the current budget.

That level of reduction will be devastating to our schools and our school employees. Just last week, MCPS sent reduced staffing allocations out to all schools. Class sizes are going up for the second year in a row. Schools are losing counselors, media specialists, reading specialists, or staff development teachers, as well as para-educators, media assistants, security assistants or building services workers. All of those reductions (including over $5 million additional cuts in the central office) total only $45 million. Even if MCPS also zeroed out salary step increases, the total reduction only comes to $73 million. So Leggett’s proposal would require an additional $10 in staffing cuts on top of what’s already been announced and on top of the third year of a salary freeze.

Leggett did say that he “strongly believes the county should not go one dollar lower” on the MCPS budget because it would jeopardize the County’s credibility both before the State Board of Education and the General Assembly in seeking a Maintenance of Effort waiver. Leggett further said that he “will fight any changes to go below this level. It would have dire consequences.”

Employee Compensation

Leggett also proposes drastic cuts in employee compensation. He is proposing that county government employees pay an additional 2% into their pension plan. He is also proposing that county government employees pay a higher share of their health insurance premiums. County employees currently pay 20% of premiums. Leggett proposes increasing that to 30% for “lower compensated employees” and even more for “middle and higher income employees”.

While the County does not have direct control over the health insurance premium splits in the school system, Leggett made clear that he was recommending that the Board of Education (and other independent agencies) do the same.

That kind of cost shift would have a devastating impact on school employees. A first year teacher earning $46,410 with family coverage through UHC now pays $1,148/year for insurance. If they were to be forced to pay 30% of their premium, it would cost them $5,413/year: an increase in costs of $4,265/year, or the equivalent of a 9.2% pay cut.

One must also keep in mind that the state government is also actively considering requiring all school employees to pay an additional 2% to maintain their pension benefits. So were both proposals implemented, this first year teacher would see an 11.2% cut in their take-home pay next year.

“There is nothing ‘shared’ about the sacrifices proposed in the County Executive’s budget,” said Doug Prouty, president of the Montgomery County Education Association. “He is asking public employees to pay a grossly disproportionate share of the burden. How long can the county keep slashing employee compensation in order to maintain services?”

According to the County Executive’s own budget proposal (p. 21) the average household tax burden in Montgomery County will be less, in real dollars, than it was seven years ago (2005).

“Hundreds of school supporting services employees – para-educators, teachers assistants, and media assistants – have already seen their hours reduced by 25% to 33%” said Merle Cuttitta, president of SEIU Local 500, the union representing school support workers. “Leggett is taking money out of these workers’ pockets in order to build up ‘reserve funds’ to please Wall Street bankers.”

“These cuts to the school budget will hurt students in our classrooms,” said Rebecca Newman, president of the Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals. “We are a people business. With cuts of this magnitude, it means cutting positions. I don’t believe Montgomery County will tolerate the kind of class sizes that will result from these cuts.”

Next Steps

The County Council has two months to consider the proposed budget, and will be holding public hearings before then. MCEA, SEIU and MCAAP will be encouraging our members to attend. We are also encouraging all our members and other friends of public education to contact County Council members to help them understand the severe impact these cuts will have on our schools and our school employees. Contact information for the Council can be found at http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/csltmpl.asp?url=/content/council/contact.asp .

To read a summary of the County Executive’s proposal budget, go to: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/omb/FY12/psprec/pdf/message.pdf .

The complete proposed budget can be found at: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/ombtmpl.asp?url=/content/omb/fy12/psprec/index.asp .



# # #

[Anonymous]

I believe parents need to be more vocal in the coming months. Increasing class size should not be the path of least resistance.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I agree that class size needs better protection. I also would like to see more selective cutting in specialized programs like sports, drama, etc. Finally, I think they need to take more out of the FOCUS schools, than the non-FOCUS schools.

In the end, the schools need more money. The teachers will probably have to sacrifice more to get the council on board with more money for schools.