We have seen this before here and here. Superintendent Jerry Weast has stashes of cash that he pulls out from time to time. We will see this again on June 8, 2010, when he produces funds from royalties received from ____________. Sorry, can't fill in the blank. Superintendent Weast isn't telling where these dollars came from. See his memo to the Board of Education below.
On Tuesday, Weast will reveal that MCPS received $194,704 in FY10 from an outside source. Funny how this money is just surfacing now, after the "tough" budget decisions have been made for FY11.
Couldn't these funds have gone to fund teacher salaries and keep teachers in classrooms for FY11? Of course. But that wouldn't be any fun.
Superintendent Weast will combine the $194,704 received from ________ with $126,139 in "net assets" to fund something that the Board of Education has never approved, the MyMCPS online community.
The Board of Education has only been allowed to discuss this new MyMCPS online system that will be funded with this new found cash.
If they were to vote on it they might have to make a "tough" decision! Nothing new here.
Funding $320,000 in experimental technology is a lot more fun that funding classroom teachers, right?
4.3.1 Enterprise
And what about the millions (and I mean over $20) stashed away in the principal "slush funds" officially called the "Independent Activity Funds" Accounts outside of the MCPS general fund, and other then a small portion of this that has restricted uses (ie; memorial funds) it is available. It could have been used to balance the budget without laying off a single classroom teacher.
ReplyDeleteBob Astrove
I seem to recall being at a County Council ED committee meeting where Valerie Ervin specifically told MCPS that she didn't want to hear anything about a new myMCPS intitiative, and didn't MCPS understand that money was tight...anyone else remember this?
ReplyDeleteWhat about the fact that last year, in exchange for Montgomery County teachers agreeing to voluntarily giving up their COLAs, it was agreed that there would be NO new initiatives of any kind until teacher COLAs were reinstated? If there isn't any money to pay the teachers, why is there enough money for Promethian Boards, MyMCPS and the Seven Keys to College readiness? Some might call that bad faith.
ReplyDelete