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Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Montgomery County To Use School Funds for Other Items PLEASE SEND EMAIL
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Anonymous
I know that most candidates "donated" $6,000, which is the maximum allowable amount, to MCEA to be endorced. Is this the fee you are talking about? |
Anonymous
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Statement from Board of Education President Christopher Barclay on the County Council’s Action on the Fiscal Year 2012 Operating Budget
“We are extremely disappointed that the County Council decided to, once again, take state funds meant for education and use them to balance its side of the budget. With this budget, the Council will have taken 90 percent of our increases in state aid meant to help poor students and used it for non-educational purposes. That is $144 million out of $160 million. This is unacceptable.” “We understand the County’s fiscal situation and we have been willing to work with the County Executive and County Council to address the budget situation. We agreed to support the County Executive’s budget proposal which cut $82 million from our budget request. We were only asking that state education dollars provided to MCPS to help us deal with our growing enrollment remain with the school system. Instead, the County Council is taking all of those funds meant for schools and using it to balance its side of the budget. The Council has stated that they support the school system and that its cuts will not hurt the classroom. That simply isn’t true. Every school will feel the effects of these cuts.” “Over the past three years, the Board of Education and the staff of MCPS have made over $300 million in budget reductions. We have raised class sizes, eliminated hundreds of teaching positions, reduced our central office by more than 20 percent and eliminated Cost of Living increases for our employees for the past two years and steps last year. Because of our outstanding employees, we have been able to improve student achievement even during these difficult times. However, next year, we will be spending $1,500 less per student in local funding than we did in 2009. The Board of Education members are very concerned that these cuts will eventually undermine the tremendous progress we have made.” “The Board of Education will immediately begin working with staff to deal with the Council’s budget cuts.” |
Anonymous
How do you feel about the council using funds meant for the schools to fund other programs? You're fine with that? |
Anonymous
You do realize the whole state is in the middle of a backlash against the MOE law, right? Its days are numbered... |
Anonymous
It's numbered according to whom? The idiots running the Maryland Government? The MOE is there to protect the students and ensure the kids are getting the money intended for them, a cost of living per say... Doing away with the MOE will set back our school system and set us into a decline, we're on the list of the top ten school systems in the nation for a reason. |
Anonymous
So was the General Assembly a bunch of idiots when they passed MOE in the first place? Or are they only idiots when they disagree with you? MoCo is in financial trouble with MOE because when times were good, it far exceeded required funding for MOE and now can't keep up in an economic downturn. What this has done is caused counties to "re-base" their funding to a more appropriate level (lower obviously, don't forget there's no penalty this year). And counties, including MoCo, will now treat MOE requirements as a funding ceiling, and not as a funding minimum. Bad law, all the way around. |
Anonymous
Do you live in Montgomery County and have children in the school system? I'm not sure why you think taking funds away from the education system is a good idea at all, in any case. |
Anonymous
We're a top 5 school system in the nation for a reason. Would you like us to end up like the DC school system, the CA school system, the NYC school system? We're at the top for a reason and it starts with the funding. Pull the funding away and everything else slips away. |
Anonymous
"We're a top five school system in the nation for a reason" Yes, the reason is the PR staff of six in Jerry Weast's office, and the $9M/year spending on PR. |
Anonymous
Funding is not synonymous with MOE though. That's where everyone's getting hung up. MOE was passed because Baltimore City kept reducing its local education funding every time it got more State money. It was NEVER an issue in MoCo. Never. We've overfunded MOE from the beginning, by $75 million a year on average. Because we are an extremely wealthy county. And now we are paying for it during the worst recession ever, when we're not even allowed, under MOE to find other efficiencies in the system. MOE is NOT what makes this County fund its schools. We fund it because it's a priority. But holding us to an artificial, extrinsic requirement doesn't help anyone, and in fiscal years like this, it hurts our County much more than it hurts others. |
Anonymous
Of course I live and work here. Or else I wouldn't care what MoCo did with its money. You are assuming we have a choice in the matter of funding, and we don't. This is the worst recession in history. If your household income was cut back by 25% one year (as MoCo's was last year), would you continue to pay every single expenditure you have, at the same level? You might argue yes, you'd continue to live at such a high level and take from savings. The problem with this is, when the County dips into its reserves, we lose our "credit rating." It's like your credit score plummeting from 800 down to 500, and then there are all sorts of other financials burdens you bring on yourself. Most people would cut spending faced with a 25% income reduction. And that's what the County did. Nobody and no program can be held 100% harmless when faced with the extraordinarily huge revenue reductions we've faced over the past 3 years. Not even the schools. The challenge is to spend money wisely. Find efficiencies where they have the least impact on programming and delivery of services. And whether you agree or not, that's what the Council attempted to do. All other independent agencies and departments have suffered much worse than the schools have. Much worse. |
Anonymous
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We already pay a ton in taxes - it's fine to oppose cuts if you are identifying where else the money should come from in the budget. But money does not grow on trees and there are MANY in the county deeply opposed to jacking up taxes even further to keep spending levels at the inflated amts they were at during the housing run-up.
Also very much agree with this:
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