Montgomery County Councilmembers Friday voiced support for fully funding Montgomery County Public Schools’ employee contracts but appeared unlikely to fully fund the school district’s entire budget request.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich requested a 10-cent property tax increase in his proposed $6.8 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2024. That includes a $3.2 billion allocation for MCPS, which is a $288.5 million increase from the previous year.
During an often-times emotional and testy discussion, councilmembers discussed keeping many of the district’s financial requests as high priority but moving two others to a lower category.
If the council doesn’t support a 10-cent property tax per $100 of assessed value, and instead reduces that to 7 or cents, which appears likely, members said they would find money elsewhere in the budget to pay for contracts for teachers, support staff and administrators.
The councilmembers suggested taking $8 million from funds not expended due to staff vacancies throughout the county and pump it into the schools’ allocation.
Besides the additional money for salaries, MCPS is requesting money to pay for what it expects to be an increase in enrollment of 2,000 students in the next school year as well as increased costs for dealing with learning loss and mental health issues arising as a result of the pandemic.
“We know the needs that exist. We know our kids need help. We know our teachers need support,” said Council President Evan Glass.
Councilmember Will Jawando agreed, “Our children are crying out to us,” adding, “We need to act.”
While councilmembers spoke of their support for MCPS, and in particular for funding the employee contracts, some expressed concern that MCPS officials have not been open and honest.
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke sharply criticized MCPS for spreading the word that if Elrich’s entire budget request and tax increase are not fully funded, then the employee raises would have to be reduced.
“Trust has been broken,” she said.
Councilmember Natali Fani-Gonzalez said the schools need to do better. “We are failing our children. Let me make that clear,” she said, noting that many students, especially Black and brown students, are not reading at grade level.
If Elrich’s proposed budget for the schools is fully funded, salaries for teachers in the next school year would increase by $5,602 for 10-month employees and $6,583 for 12-month employees as well as a step increase for those eligible.
That would mean that teacher salaries would range from $59,640 to $124,416 for 10-month employees and $70,078 to $146,189 for those with 12-month positions. The actual amount depends on experience and years of service.
The councilmembers will continue discussing the budget next week.
MCEA in the house for the CC discussion and preliminary vote on the county budget. Do the right thing and fully find our schools! pic.twitter.com/Md7fDy5AlS
— Montgomery County Education Association (@mceanea) May 12, 2023
SEIU Local 500 is here at the @MoCoCouncilMD watching as they take a straw vote on fully funding @MCPS and our contract! @seiu pic.twitter.com/UlWVczRe5w
— SEIU Local 500 (@SEIULocal500) May 12, 2023
I'm proud to support an additional $215 million in tax-supported funding for Montgomery County Public Schools – an almost 8% increase that gives the school system the resources it needs to honor its negotiated contracts with teachers, school support staff, and administrators.
— Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (@dawn_luedtke) May 12, 2023
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