The Baltimore school system would face a $131 million budget shortfall over the next three years if Gov. Martin O'Malley's latest education funding proposal is adopted, city schools chief Andres Alonso testified in Annapolis yesterday.
The system is expecting a large increase in operating costs, in part because it is poised to give teachers a raise under a new contract. It desperately needs the state to abide by the current funding formula, which mandates increased funding to keep pace with inflation, or it will face deep cuts to stay afloat, Alonso said.
But O'Malley, who was a champion for the school system as Baltimore's mayor, wants to change the law as part of his plan to close the state's projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall. The General Assembly is considering that plan in a special session that began this week. The administration's "budget reconciliation" bill was the subject of a hearing yesterday.
Alonso and city school board Chairman Brian D. Morris, a longtime political ally of O'Malley, testified at a combined hearing of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, the House Committee on Appropriations, and the House Committee on Ways and Means. Both spoke in vehement opposition to the governor's education proposal. Morris told legislators to keep "hands off" school funding.
Legislators heard about the impact the bill would have on everything from electricity rates to higher education. But much of the hearing centered on Thornton, the 2002 legislation that channeled an extra $1.5 billion to Maryland schools over five years.
O'Malley, meanwhile, released an open letter to the Maryland Democratic Party, saying the budget shortfall was caused by the Thornton funding increase at the same time as a $1 billion income tax cut.
"In our budget solution," O'Malley wrote, "we're finally going to keep our promise - continuing to improve Maryland's schools - by adjusting growth, while maintaining record funding for schools."
Alonso disputed that position.
Even if O'Malley keeps the inflation increases for schools, Alonso said, the city schools still aren't receiving enough to provide children with an adequate education. While it's not his job to fix the state's budget woes, he said in an interview, "My job is to understand what it takes to educate children. It takes a great deal more than what we've been doing."
To legislators who think otherwise, he added: "Would they be happy sending their children to Baltimore City schools with the present level of funding?"
