One County Council member wanted to know whether a 100-seat addition planned for Bellows Spring Elementary School in Ellicott City could be pushed back a year if some children could be redistricted to empty seats at nearby Ilchester Elementary.
Another wondered whether renovations at school board headquarters can be delayed.
Meanwhile, others asked if the county should spend more next fiscal year to take advantage of lower, recession-driven construction prices.
County leaders are pondering a range of possibilities as the coming spring brings annual budget dilemmas, magnified this year by shrinking revenues.
At a Monday meeting in the government's temporary headquarters in Columbia, council members met with school officials and planning board members. They conducted an informal discussion on priorities amid the $374 million in capital budget requests for fiscal year 2010, which begins July 1.
"This helps us have a deeper understanding," said council Chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty.
The requests are lower than last year, because there are fewer water and sewer projects. But economic uncertainty means choices are harder to make, officials say.
The council met with the planning board last year to get an idea of how the board evaluated requests. County Executive Ken Ulman is to present his capital spending plan by April 1. Ulman's operating budget is to follow April 20, and the council has until June 1 to make any changes and adopt both budgets. Residents will have their last chance to comment on the spending plans at public hearings on March 18 and 19.
Courtney Watson, who represents parts of Ellicott City and Elkridge, marveled at how Bellows Spring Elementary has become so crowded that it needs an addition. The county opened another school, Veterans Elementary, in the same region last year, and so many new students are coming from development along the U.S. 1 corridor that another building is under discussion.
Sigaty said the former Faulkner Ridge School could be reopened and that land is available for another school in Hickory Ridge.
Watson, a former school board member, suggested that if the school board redistricted, empty seats at Ilchester could be filled and the addition at Bellows Spring could be pushed off a year. That could allow $810,000 to be used for something more pressing - like one of two dance studios planned at Hammond and Centennial high schools next year. This year, she suggested, final decisions could magnify the importance of $810,000, even in a $95 million school budget request.
