Millions for the Classroom

Testimony to the Montgomery County Board of Education, by Bob Astrove 1-20-10

I am here this evening to speak with you about closing the fiscal gap without further harming the educational gap. Let me begin by saying that I’m tired of all the political whining about no money. Your job is to deal with the realities of the current economic climate. It's time to stop crying, buckle down, and get the job done.

I have a few suggestions:

1. Seize all, non-restricted, outstanding balances in the Independent Activity Funds for application to next year's operating budget. Your audits are filled with abuses of these funds. Clear the slate, clean up the internal practices, and help fund next year’s operating budget. I suspect this would yield about $20 million.

2. For the past several years MCPS has gone hog wild leasing Capital equipment. Promethean Boards, Busses, and even Football Fields. This financing gimmick shifted Capital expenditures and implied debt service to the operating budget. It is time to reverse this trend. The County should borrow and convert these obligations to traditional debt financing. I think this might free up another $20 million in the operating budget for each of several years.

3. Why is the Office of Communications budget growing by over 3 percent? If our priority is really the classroom then why would the Superintendent propose increasing class size before cutting this overhead? I urge you to trim this $10 million office by $2.5 million.

4. Total Administration, Central and Mid-Level, is about 8.5% of the budget. The same percentage it was 15 years ago. Therefore I conclude all of the talk about administration cuts have been nothing more than shuffles. Let’s just hold Administration to the same budget as this year, and save $6 million. Just a three percent cut would yield another $5 million.

5. And finally when are you going to talk about benefits? Next year’s budget includes a 15% increase and proposes spending 23% of the entire operating budget on benefits. By comparrison, Howard, Frederick, and Anne Arundel Counties each only spend between 17 and 19% of their operating budgets for employee benefits. The difference is an additional $100 million per year spent by MCPS.

In the real world people are having their benefit plans cut left and right. No, not pleasant, but reality. I ask you, can the taxpayer-families who are eating more and more of their own cost really afford to hold public employees immune from the same fiscal reality? Is that equity? And if not this year, when will you be addressing the benefits issues that strangle our ability to really invest in direct educational services for children?

That’s just a few ideas for raising millions of dollars that can be used to cut the operating budget and maintain the classroom.