May 15, 1995
Howard County's Board of Education is in that uncomfortable position where all the options available look bad. Not only are school board members unable to get the extra $4.4 million they want from the County Council, but the board must make cuts that could make it the target of an embittered community.
This sequence of events is not Howard's standard operating procedure. In the past, county officials have largely acquiesced to school board requests, and the school budget requests have been inviolable.
All of that changed last year when a Republican majority won election to the county council. The council's past practice was to restore money in the education budget that County Executive Charles I. Ecker cut. Howard has entered a new era. County Council Chairman Charles E. Feaga is already talking about next year's budget being even tighter than this one.
The Republicans' stance represents a tremendous gamble for the GOP. The trick for them will be to convince the community that they are not against public schools but, rather, conservative watchdogs of the county's finances. Howard's lagging tax revenues will help bolster that argument.
Nevertheless, the council will have to show restraint. Wholesale cuts risk harming one of Maryland's stellar school systems. For all the talk that current county leaders make about attracting business to Howard, they need to remember that high-quality schools are a major reason many companies decide to locate here.
The jury is still out on how this $4.4 million reduction in the operating budget will be perceived. A lot still depends on how Republicans respond to the unanticipated shortfall in school construction funds from the state. At least on that score, officials seem to be more willing to substitute county resources.
The difficult task for the school board is to decide what programs to cut in the operating budget. All of the possibilities mentioned so far -- from reducing transportation funds and forcing parents to pay for their children's trips to athletic events to slashing the Black Student Achievement budget -- are unattractive. The board may not be to blame for its predicament, but its members are sure to be targets of community wrath as they make unpopular cuts.
