School Budget

Rolling Knolls Elementary School third-grader Luke Mueller asked the Anne Arundel County Council to keep his aging, overcrowded school in mind when deciding on funding next year's school budget. "A new school would make everything better," Luke said of the Annapolis school. "We wouldn't have to come in from the trailers to go to the bathroom. We could even have a real playground with swings. And our parents could stop parking in the parking lanes because of how small our parking lot is. " Luke was among dozens of county residents of all ages and backgrounds who spoke up for their schools, their local libraries and their education programs during public hearings on the county budget on Monday at Old Mill High School in Millersville and Wednesday at the Arundel Center in Annapolis.

Baltimore's school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a $1.3 billion budget that has drawn backlash from schools and lawmakers for its program cuts, and has led the board to consider overhauling a local funding formula that left some high schools with as much as $450,000 in cuts. The proposed budget - which shows dwindling financial support for two high-profile programs for gifted students, Ingenuity Project and International Baccalaureate - has spurred petitions, political outcry and a citywide debate about the investment in advanced students.

Acknowledging the sparse turn-out of about a dozen residents at his March 18 Town Hall Community Meeting at the South Carroll Senior Center, in Eldersburg, County Commissioner Doug Howard jokingly confessed that he'd considered ways to drum up more excitement for the Monday evening session. "I asked Commissioner (Richard) Rothschild to come debate me on education, but that didn't work out," Howard said, referring to his fellow commissioner from District 4 who advocates for cuts to the county school budget that Howard opposes.

City school officials facing a $31 million budget shortfall next year have proposed dipping into the system's rainy day fund to close the gap. But that's not what those dollars are supposed to be for. The whole point of setting aside emergency funds is to cushion the impact of major unanticipated disruptions, from natural disasters to sudden economic crises. They're not a backstop for the kind of foreseeable, year-to-year budgetary ups and downs that ought to be part of the routine planning process, and using them that way would set a terrible precedent for the future.

Teachers and others concerned about county funding of the 2014 school budget were expected to stage another protest at Tuesday night's Harford County Council meeting in Bel Air. With time running out in the budget review process, the 1 percent pay increase the teachers union negotiated earlier this year with the Harford County Board of Education appears to be in jeopardy after Harford County Executive David Craig declined to fund the entire increase...

50 Years Ago (week of May 11-17, 1941):* The Howard County Boardof Education presented the largest public school budget in county history to the Board of Commissioners this week. The budget totaled $263,470, $22,000 of which was designated for an addition to the West Friendship School. The total allotment for teachers' salaries for the 1941-1942 school year was $145,200. The budget also provided for an increase in the salary of the superintendent of schools, from $3,040 to$3,300.25 Years Ago (week of May 8-14, 1966)

Let's see if we have this straight. The Baltimore County Board of Education has approved a fiscal 1995 budget that asks the county government to provide $46 million more than it did for the current school budget. At the same time, the County Council has adopted a spending limit that holds the jurisdiction's entire 1995 budget growth to no more than $41 million.You get the feeling that something's going to give here?Bet on it. County Executive Roger Hayden has already begun sharpening his ax in preparation for taking a whack at this school budget.

The process hasn't been pretty: Local school superintendents make sizable budget requests each winter, politicians who hold the purse strings charge fiscal gluttony and slash the schools' requests. Educators and some parents counter that the leaders are insensitive to education.It may get even uglier this year.After years of revenue gains, suburban government officials are grappling with flat budget growth or even projected deficits in a recession. Their patience for requests for more money from various departments will be slimmer than ever, they have indicated.

The Howard County school board approved a $230.2 million operating budget yesterday that falls 2 percent short of what it had requested to run the school system next year.Although the budget will be almost $13 million more than for the current school year, the board still was forced to make more than $4 million in cuts to many items intended to handle the county's exploding student enrollment -- including additional staffing, new textbooks and an expanded monitoring program for underachieving black students.

Parents in Harford County came to a public hearing on the proposed $184 million school budget looking for a faster route to the information highway.They expressed concerns about incompatible computer software programs, a lack of computer teachers and the need for computer technicians at Monday's meeting.Their pleas did not go unheeded."The theme is to pay more attention to technology," said Ronald R. Eaton, school board vice president.Other board members supported him."There is a necessity of having a [technology]

A slowdown in revenue has Baltimore school officials scrambling for budget adjustments that won't require the system to raid its rainy-day fund or cut central office positions and school programs. Officials face a $31 million deficit in next year's budget, due to factors that include a dried up stream of grant funding, fluctuating financial commitments and a halt to rapid growth in enrollment. Now, the school board has asked administrators to come up with alternatives to their proposed budget reductions, which included staff layoffs, breaking contracts and cutbacks to summer school.

The Baltimore County Planning Board on Thursday gave its stamp of approval to the school board's $56.2 million capital budget request for fiscal year 2015, though it attached a caveat to a controversial school construction plan approved in the budget. In a memo to Baltimore County's Director of Budget and Finance Keith Dorsey, the Planning Board urged further discussions with stakeholders about the three-part central area elementary school overcrowding relief plan that, includes the closure of Halstead Academy in Hillendale.

Baltimore County school Superintendent Dallas Dance rolled out Tuesday a $1.4 billion proposed budget for next year that would shave principals' budgets, increase seats for pre-kindergartners and add money for employee raises. The budget, which must be approved by the school board before it goes to County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, is a $72.4 million, or 5 percent increase, over this year's. By reducing costs in some areas, Dance would be able to pay for his top priorities, including new programs to close the achievement gap and new technology in schools.

Several work sessions to solicit input from Harford County Public Schools staff and parents of students about next year's budget begin next week. The school system is coming off of a year in which administrators and board of education members made significant changes to save money – including charging fees for sports and extracurricular activities and alterations to bus schedules that eliminated routes and altered school times – that continue to draw the ire of parents and school staff.

Editor: The following is the statement of the Harford County School Bus Contractors Association regarding the budget approved by the Harford County Board of Education on June 10: Like a great many of our fellow county residents, the members of the Harford County School Bus Contractors Association (HCSBCA) were dismayed to see the severe budget cuts made by the Harford County School Board at their June 10 meeting. We certainly acknowledge the incredibly difficult position of the school board in being faced with the need to close the gap between the budget they had approved earlier in the year and one they actually had enough money to fund.

The Anne Arundel County Council vote this week to trim $5 million from the school's capital budget has led school officials to allege that the cut was retaliation for a squabble last year. On Wednesday, after the school board reviewed more than three dozen projects in jeopardy because of the cuts, Superintendent Kevin Maxwell said the board now has "the most contentious relationship we've had with the council. " "How we're going to work together going forward is as much a question as where we are now," Maxwell said.

Question of the day:Were Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger and public schools Superintendent Stuart Berger able to keep straight faces at their recent meeting when Mr. Ruppersberger warned Dr. Berger against submitting a fat budget request for the coming fiscal year?Both these officials have been around the track enough times to know how the Baltimore County school budget game is played, year in and year out, with almost maddening repetitiveness.It goes like this: County executive sends signals about money not being plentiful.

Teachers and others concerned about county funding of the 2014 school budget were expected to stage another protest at Tuesday night's Harford County Council meeting in Bel Air. With time running out in the budget review process, the 1 percent pay increase the teachers union negotiated earlier this year with the Harford County Board of Education appears to be in jeopardy after Harford County Executive David Craig declined to fund the entire increase...

Baltimore City school officials say the nearly $1.2 billion budget the system unveiled last week will fund a raft of new academic endeavors, among them a new team to upgrade instruction in the sciences to meet the higher standards of the new national "core" curriculum and additional programs for academically gifted students. This is all to the good if it helps the city attract and retain more young families with children for whom strong public schools are often the most important factor in choosing where to live.