Budget- CE recommended budget $55.7M less

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good luck with the teacher shortage.
Teaching these days sucks due to no accountability for kids and parents and no attendance rules. If you remove or weaken benefits, I imagine even less people will be attracted to teaching. Especially since teaching is 100% in person while many jobs have switched to 80-100% remote.

Last year, my kid had a terrible long term sub for the full year for physics because the school could not find a physics teacher even though they had been looking all through the summer months. It was a completely wasted year for my kid in science class. We need to figure out how to attract more teachers to the profession

Teachers are paid reasonably well. They are not paid equal to the profession they majored in but they are also not working in that field.

Teachers need to partner with interested parents. When we reach out it's rare we get a response back so as parents we cannot support the teachers if there is a problem and we don't know about it. We've had one teacher reach out and the issue was dealt with at home that same day. As parents we don't play around. You get a complaint at school and it's appropriate you get in trouble at home.

[Anonymous]

40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

Teachers get paid salaries competitive with nurses, mid-level health care providers, and most public sector jobs.

By and large, the problem isn't pay- it is workload.

[Anonymous]

The cost share for health insurance in MCPS is already very generous. The $40 million they want to supplement it with makes that cost share even more generous.

The reality is that things cost money. Inflation affects everyone. Rising healthcare costs affect everyone. The pool of money to pay for these things is not growing very much. This whole situation with the $40 million ANNUAL deficit in the health insurance fund is a massive screw up on MCPS's part and is a huge part of why we can't have nice things. Also see McKnight's (and probably Biedelman's) payout, legal fees, and the loss of Title 1 funding for some of the neediest schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The cost share for health insurance in MCPS is already very generous. The $40 million they want to supplement it with makes that cost share even more generous.

The reality is that things cost money. Inflation affects everyone. Rising healthcare costs affect everyone. The pool of money to pay for these things is not growing very much. This whole situation with the $40 million ANNUAL deficit in the health insurance fund is a massive screw up on MCPS's part and is a huge part of why we can't have nice things. Also see McKnight's (and probably Biedelman's) payout, legal fees, and the loss of Title 1 funding for some of the neediest schools

And maintaining pandemic era programs without pandemic era funding, like VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

Teachers get paid salaries competitive with nurses, mid-level health care providers, and most public sector jobs.

By and large, the problem isn't pay- it is workload.

Some get paid more than equal county jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The cost share for health insurance in MCPS is already very generous. The $40 million they want to supplement it with makes that cost share even more generous.

The reality is that things cost money. Inflation affects everyone. Rising healthcare costs affect everyone. The pool of money to pay for these things is not growing very much. This whole situation with the $40 million ANNUAL deficit in the health insurance fund is a massive screw up on MCPS's part and is a huge part of why we can't have nice things. Also see McKnight's (and probably Biedelman's) payout, legal fees, and the loss of Title 1 funding for some of the neediest schools

And maintaining pandemic era programs without pandemic era funding, like VA.

The mva costs are nominal. Stop being petty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The cost share for health insurance in MCPS is already very generous. The $40 million they want to supplement it with makes that cost share even more generous.

The reality is that things cost money. Inflation affects everyone. Rising healthcare costs affect everyone. The pool of money to pay for these things is not growing very much. This whole situation with the $40 million ANNUAL deficit in the health insurance fund is a massive screw up on MCPS's part and is a huge part of why we can't have nice things. Also see McKnight's (and probably Biedelman's) payout, legal fees, and the loss of Title 1 funding for some of the neediest schools

And maintaining pandemic era programs without pandemic era funding, like VA.

The mva costs are nominal. Stop being petty.

$5 million here, $5 million there, pretty soon you're talking real money!

[Anonymous]

You can't cry bloody murder over $60 million and say $5 million is "nominal".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

Teachers get paid salaries competitive with nurses, mid-level health care providers, and most public sector jobs.

By and large, the problem isn't pay- it is workload.

Most of those jobs get overtime pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The pension issue is a complicated one and it is controlled by the state not the county. After 2011 the state pushed more of the pension costs to the counties.

The county got rid of pensions at least 25 years ago. They should be consistent as Mcps is part of the county. The county and MCPS cannot afford the pension system for MCPS. While its a great perk, its not realistic but there are many places MCPS can cut.

MCPS is part of MoCo but compoletely separate from the county for personnel and leadership - hence the separately elected BoE. Want to change that, talk to your representation in the Annapolis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

Teachers get paid salaries competitive with nurses, mid-level health care providers, and most public sector jobs.

By and large, the problem isn't pay- it is workload.

Most of those jobs get overtime pay.

And I'm sure teachers would love overtime pay!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The cost share for health insurance in MCPS is already very generous. The $40 million they want to supplement it with makes that cost share even more generous.

The reality is that things cost money. Inflation affects everyone. Rising healthcare costs affect everyone. The pool of money to pay for these things is not growing very much. This whole situation with the $40 million ANNUAL deficit in the health insurance fund is a massive screw up on MCPS's part and is a huge part of why we can't have nice things. Also see McKnight's (and probably Biedelman's) payout, legal fees, and the loss of Title 1 funding for some of the neediest schools

And maintaining pandemic era programs without pandemic era funding, like VA.

The mva costs are nominal. Stop being petty.

$5 million here, $5 million there, pretty soon you're talking real money!

So, what is your alternative for kids who need or want it? How about cutting out the non profits that mcps gives money to that don’t support mcps? Why did the boe need new offices and furniture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:40,000,000 divided by 26,000 employees works out to around $1600 per employee as an average.

My best guess is that MCPS will muddle through it and then fight tooth and nail against pay increases for teachers. I got tired of teaching in FCPS,MD watching us get a pay increase but then also having our share of insurance go up and cancel out any take home salary increase. It sucked and was demoralizing for newer staff who can barely make it in any school system due to low pay and poor support.

Adjusted for inflation pay at each step goes down every year. Hard to recommend teaching for college graduates based on the economics of this area and college costs now.

Teachers get paid salaries competitive with nurses, mid-level health care providers, and most public sector jobs.

By and large, the problem isn't pay- it is workload.

Most of those jobs get overtime pay.

It the county jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't cry bloody murder over $60 million and say $5 million is "nominal".

Cutting the va is not reasonable.