Elrich and Friedson confusingly blame each other for underfunding MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS actually looks pretty lean compared to other Maryland school districts, in their ratio of non-instructional staff to number of students. See table 4 here:

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Staff/2023StaffEmply.pdf

Montgomery has 17.2 non-instructional staff per student, while the state average is 20.9.

And a reminder that non-instructional staff are not all part of central office. The figure includes school-based staff who work in building maintenance, the cafeteria, the office, etc.

That can’t be right. There could not be 17+ noninstructional staff per student. That would be nearly 3 million noninstructional staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS actually looks pretty lean compared to other Maryland school districts, in their ratio of non-instructional staff to number of students. See table 4 here:

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Staff/2023StaffEmply.pdf

Montgomery has 17.2 non-instructional staff per student, while the state average is 20.9.

And a reminder that non-instructional staff are not all part of central office. The figure includes school-based staff who work in building maintenance, the cafeteria, the office, etc.

That can’t be right. There could not be 17+ noninstructional staff per student. That would be nearly 3 million noninstructional staff.

It's 17.2 students for every non instructional staff member.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Start with the 5 director positions McKnight created for her buddies.

Or special contracts with the Kid's Museum or Electric Busses or Another high paid comms firm or another study about something incredibly unuseful and unrelated to education or maybe some SEL training or the 10000 other incredibly dumb things they blow a pile of cash on every year

This and all the attorney fees spent fighting families.

From a financial standpoint, those costs make sense. If a child's needs can be served within MCPS, then it's absolutely worth it to spend $50K to fight the private placement, rather than $80K per year for the rest of that child's educational journey.

You may think that's wrong or unkind or immoral, but it's a good use of taxpayer resources.

Except those parents fighting for private placements generally aren't better served in MCPS as if they were the parents wouldn't be fighting for a better placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Start with the 5 director positions McKnight created for her buddies.

Or special contracts with the Kid's Museum or Electric Busses or Another high paid comms firm or another study about something incredibly unuseful and unrelated to education or maybe some SEL training or the 10000 other incredibly dumb things they blow a pile of cash on every year

This and all the attorney fees spent fighting families.

From a financial standpoint, those costs make sense. If a child's needs can be served within MCPS, then it's absolutely worth it to spend $50K to fight the private placement, rather than $80K per year for the rest of that child's educational journey.

You may think that's wrong or unkind or immoral, but it's a good use of taxpayer resources.

Except those parents fighting for private placements generally aren't better served in MCPS as if they were the parents wouldn't be fighting for a better placement.

And, as a taxpayer if it gives a child a fighting chance at a good future, I'll gladly pay 480K for it. Be thankful you don't have a SN child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More from the article :

Elrich said he believes the council’s decision during budget deliberations in 2023 not to raise the property tax rate by 10% to help fund MCPS, as he proposed, set the school system back. The council compromised with a 4.7% rate increase, while still fully funding the school budget proposal. Friedson, who was then council vice president, did not support a property tax rate increase.

“The council created the problem last year when they told the school system to use $33 million to hire people. But that was federal money, not county money,” Elrich said. “Those costs rolled into this year’s budget, putting additional pressure on the budget, leaving aside the normal inflation and everything else the school system had to deal with.”


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I think Elrich is in the right totally pointing out that hiring people whose salary is to be paid by federal funds that they knew would disappear was a fiscally irresponsible choice. The county needed to have raised property taxes so they could fund these new hires after the federal funds dried up or not to have hired people they knew they could not afford to keep the following year. Everyone knew ESSR funds were ending this year so there is no excuse for not planning ahead.

The County has no power to demand that the schools come back with cuts that don't involve cutting staff. The county government does this to every other department and forces them to find savings. Stuff like training, take home vehicles, p card privileges, replacement equipment, etc. get reduced, delayed, or cut outright. It's never an optimal service delivery, but it's one that recognizes we have limited revenues that have to fund millions of things.

MCPS never has to do the same, so they don't. They whine for more money. They threaten to cut jobs. They suck at prudent fiscal management, and there's no way to fix that, other than hold maintenance of effort requirements as a ceiling and not a floor.

+1 Thank you Montgomery County Taxpayers League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Didn't McKnight add like 30% more staff to the CO for various DEI committees? And why does MCPS have 2X more admin positions than FCPS?

Idiot. MCPS does not have 2x mor admin positions than FCPS. FCPS has more.
You right wingers keep repeating that same lie.

The data was posted here a month or two ago and MCPS has close to double the admin positions of FCPS.

Yeah, the false data that was posted and contradicted by FCPS own data and website over and over.
But you, right wingers, keep posting the same lie over and over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Didn't McKnight add like 30% more staff to the CO for various DEI committees? And why does MCPS have 2X more admin positions than FCPS?

Idiot. MCPS does not have 2x mor admin positions than FCPS. FCPS has more.
You right wingers keep repeating that same lie.

The data was posted here a month or two ago and MCPS has close to double the admin positions of FCPS.

Yeah, the false data that was posted and contradicted by FCPS own data and website over and over.
But you, right wingers, keep posting the same lie over and over.

+10000. Folks need to let this claim go. It been repeatedly proven false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS actually looks pretty lean compared to other Maryland school districts, in their ratio of non-instructional staff to number of students. See table 4 here:

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Staff/2023StaffEmply.pdf

Montgomery has 17.2 non-instructional staff per student, while the state average is 20.9.

And a reminder that non-instructional staff are not all part of central office. The figure includes school-based staff who work in building maintenance, the cafeteria, the office, etc.

That can’t be right. There could not be 17+ noninstructional staff per student. That would be nearly 3 million noninstructional staff.

It's 17.2 students for every non instructional staff member.

That makes much more sense.
Do you know the number of students per teacher/instructional staff member?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS actually looks pretty lean compared to other Maryland school districts, in their ratio of non-instructional staff to number of students. See table 4 here:

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Staff/2023StaffEmply.pdf

Montgomery has 17.2 non-instructional staff per student, while the state average is 20.9.

And a reminder that non-instructional staff are not all part of central office. The figure includes school-based staff who work in building maintenance, the cafeteria, the office, etc.

That can’t be right. There could not be 17+ noninstructional staff per student. That would be nearly 3 million noninstructional staff.

So they don't include the zillion people at the Central Office as noninstructional staff? I mean that's 99% of the nonteachers in MCPS employ and why they have so much more admins than other school systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS actually looks pretty lean compared to other Maryland school districts, in their ratio of non-instructional staff to number of students. See table 4 here:

https://www.marylandpublicschools.org/about/Documents/DCAA/SSP/20222023Staff/2023StaffEmply.pdf

Montgomery has 17.2 non-instructional staff per student, while the state average is 20.9.

And a reminder that non-instructional staff are not all part of central office. The figure includes school-based staff who work in building maintenance, the cafeteria, the office, etc.

That can’t be right. There could not be 17+ noninstructional staff per student. That would be nearly 3 million noninstructional staff.

So they don't include the zillion people at the Central Office as noninstructional staff? I mean that's 99% of the nonteachers in MCPS employ and why they have so much more admins than other school systems.

Read the report linked above. You are incorrect.

[Anonymous]

I have no sympathy for MCPS budget shortfalls. My impression is that since Montgomery County is wealthy, liberal, and well-educated, prioritizing education, education, they are relatively well-funded. Repeatedly, I have seen them spend excessively, even when there might have been reason to exercise a little spending restraint.

For example, during the 2008-09 school year, I attended a curriculum meeting where the district announced their intention to put Promethean smart boards in every classroom. While they listed a number of benefits they would provide, everything they noted was achievable with existing technology that the schools already possessed. When I pointed this out and asked if the Promethean boards could add anything that wasn’t already available, the question took them aback - I don’t think they’d even considered it. After some hemming and hawing, they finally decided that Promethean boards would allow teachers to annotate videos as they were watched. For this we made a major technology investment DURING A MAJOR FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Similarly, apparently MCPS decided that a global pandemic was the time to invest in Bocce and a local museum.

Over the years, I’ve seen MCPS spend money willy-nilly on every pet project, educational fad, and technological trend that came along without considering how much they would actually contribute to education itself. Rather than make hard choices, they’d rather whine about a lack of funding. When it turns out that they may not be able to fund everything on their wish list, it seems like the basics get sacrificed to the prestige items.

I have nothing against bocce, museums, or smart boards. If we had unlimited funding, I’d want the kids to have those and every other advantage anyone might wish for. However, in the real world choices have to be made. Maybe these items offer sufficient benefit that they should be fully funded, but we need to recognize that the consequence may mean that something else may need to be sacrificed. I just think we should start prioritizing education and stop thinking of taxpayers as fairy godmothers who can, and should, make all their wishes come true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Didn't McKnight add like 30% more staff to the CO for various DEI committees? And why does MCPS have 2X more admin positions than FCPS?

Idiot. MCPS does not have 2x mor admin positions than FCPS. FCPS has more.
You right wingers keep repeating that same lie.

The data was posted here a month or two ago and MCPS has close to double the admin positions of FCPS.

Yeah, the false data that was posted and contradicted by FCPS own data and website over and over.
But you, right wingers, keep posting the same lie over and over.

+10000. Folks need to let this claim go. It been repeatedly proven false.

But the only data that was posted showed that it was true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no sympathy for MCPS budget shortfalls. My impression is that since Montgomery County is wealthy, liberal, and well-educated, prioritizing education, education, they are relatively well-funded. Repeatedly, I have seen them spend excessively, even when there might have been reason to exercise a little spending restraint.

For example, during the 2008-09 school year, I attended a curriculum meeting where the district announced their intention to put Promethean smart boards in every classroom. While they listed a number of benefits they would provide, everything they noted was achievable with existing technology that the schools already possessed. When I pointed this out and asked if the Promethean boards could add anything that wasn’t already available, the question took them aback - I don’t think they’d even considered it. After some hemming and hawing, they finally decided that Promethean boards would allow teachers to annotate videos as they were watched. For this we made a major technology investment DURING A MAJOR FINANCIAL CRISIS.

Similarly, apparently MCPS decided that a global pandemic was the time to invest in Bocce and a local museum.

Over the years, I’ve seen MCPS spend money willy-nilly on every pet project, educational fad, and technological trend that came along without considering how much they would actually contribute to education itself. Rather than make hard choices, they’d rather whine about a lack of funding. When it turns out that they may not be able to fund everything on their wish list, it seems like the basics get sacrificed to the prestige items.

I have nothing against bocce, museums, or smart boards. If we had unlimited funding, I’d want the kids to have those and every other advantage anyone might wish for. However, in the real world choices have to be made. Maybe these items offer sufficient benefit that they should be fully funded, but we need to recognize that the consequence may mean that something else may need to be sacrificed. I just think we should start prioritizing education and stop thinking of taxpayers as fairy godmothers who can, and should, make all their wishes come true.

How about electric busses, multimillion $ contracts w/multiple comms firms when MCPS already has comms people, SEL training like leader in me that almost everyone despises, a never ending stream of pointless studies that they never use for problems they can't solve,bad curriculums like benchmark, the list goes on and on. MCPS needs to amek some effort to stop throwing away money before any taxpayer should be asked to give them more. They can't keep raising property taxes annually to address this kind of spending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Didn't McKnight add like 30% more staff to the CO for various DEI committees? And why does MCPS have 2X more admin positions than FCPS?

Idiot. MCPS does not have 2x mor admin positions than FCPS. FCPS has more.
You right wingers keep repeating that same lie.

The data was posted here a month or two ago and MCPS has close to double the admin positions of FCPS.

Yeah, the false data that was posted and contradicted by FCPS own data and website over and over.
But you, right wingers, keep posting the same lie over and over.

+10000. Folks need to let this claim go. It been repeatedly proven false.

But the only data that was posted showed that it was true.

No, data from FCPS was posted showing that it was not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They need to cut the central office bloat first and foremost. After that happens we can talk about funding.

I keep reading this sentence over and over but what bloat does it refer to? List the positions that you think don't support the school system.

Didn't McKnight add like 30% more staff to the CO for various DEI committees? And why does MCPS have 2X more admin positions than FCPS?

Idiot. MCPS does not have 2x mor admin positions than FCPS. FCPS has more.
You right wingers keep repeating that same lie.

The data was posted here a month or two ago and MCPS has close to double the admin positions of FCPS.

Yeah, the false data that was posted and contradicted by FCPS own data and website over and over.
But you, right wingers, keep posting the same lie over and over.

+10000. Folks need to let this claim go. It been repeatedly proven false.

But the only data that was posted showed that it was true.

No, data from FCPS was posted showing that it was not true.

I seem to have missed this argument. I haven’t seen data either way. The two systems have always struck me as roughly equivalent. I’ve long thought the Blair/TJ debate was ridiculous as they are both outstanding STEM programs with outstanding students. Arguing about which school system has more administrative bloat seems similarly pointless. Without examining the data, I feel comfortable going out on a limb and saying that as large bureaucracies, it is a given that they each have some surplus administrators and other miscellaneous waste.

Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about any problems, financial or otherwise, that FCPS might have - they’re someone else’s problem. Whether FCPS makes deep cuts in their management ranks or goes on a hiring frenzy is irrelevant to us. I think we should just focus directly on MCPS. Personally, I vote to start with their PR department.