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Saturday, January 29, 2011
13 CENTRAL OFFICE POSITIONS SLICED*
*Other cuts by Superintendent Jerry Weast in his list of threatened cuts released on January 28, 2011, include cuts to classrooms, counselors, activity buses, special education, lunch aides, instrumental music, outdoor education, and after-school athletics.
SAVED in this draft amended budget plan are MCPS credit cards, conferences, travel, no bid procurements, and car allowances for administrators.
I'm married to a teacher in MCPS and we live in MC as well. Given the amount of money we personally spend each year buying things for her classroom, I should have been looking at these budget issues in the past. Is there a budget item that covers the cost of credit card purchases? From looking though your web pages, there seem to be a number of people with credit cards.
I have quickly looked though the operating budget. There is are cost items for several departments re: "grants." Any idea what that would be? Is MCPS paying people to write grant requests?
They "should" respond to your question with an explanation of this line item in the budget. When you get a response, would you please come back and post it here for everyone? Thanks so much.
I'm married to a teacher in MCPS and we live in MC as well. Given the amount of money we personally spend each year buying things for her classroom, I should have been looking at these budget issues in the past. Is there a budget item that covers the cost of credit card purchases? From looking though your web pages, there seem to be a number of people with credit cards.
ReplyDeleteI have quickly looked though the operating budget. There is are cost items for several departments re: "grants." Any idea what that would be? Is MCPS paying people to write grant requests?
ReplyDelete@ 6:05
ReplyDeleteNo. There is no line item for the American Express credit cards that are used by 1,400 +/- MCPS staff to our knowledge.
What we do know is that the American Express bill for the last fiscal year was $5,257,623.
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/12/weast-im-about-to-cry-on-inside-on-this.html
We have done a very few public information requests to find out how these cards are used by administrators and some of our research is here
http://www.parentscoalitionmc.com/MCPSExpenseReports.html
and some is here (scroll down posts)
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/search/label/credit%20cards
And in this video we see Board of Education member Phil Kauffman waive his MCPS American Express card in the face of a Parents' Coalition member...
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/12/board-member-flashes-mcps-credit-card.html
@6:21
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe that may be what is meant by "grants" in the budget.
However, the only way to know for sure is to ask the MCPS Budget department. Here is the link to their "Ask a Budget Question" page:
http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/budget/question.shtm
They "should" respond to your question with an explanation of this line item in the budget. When you get a response, would you please come back and post it here for everyone? Thanks so much.