Has the County Built Schools Beyond What the State will Fund?

Emphasis has been added to the County Council's Education Committee memo for November 7, 2011, excerpt below to show two areas of concern:

• 1) The State does not use the same room class size calculation as MCPS and therefore does not fund construction based on the class size calculations used by MCPS; and, 
• 2) MCPS has been building schools without State approval and thus without State approval and funding in place prior to construction. For example, Cabin John Middle School construction was begun before the project had State approval. The question raised in this memo is will the State continue to fund projects that are built without prior State approval? The Council memo has a list of all of the current construction projects that fall in to this category right now. From a parent/community perspective forward funding of school construction by the County Council takes the State review of the construction project out of the process. Forward funding allows, for example, the Cabin John "wall" to be built without any oversight from any other State agency. MCPS is able to simply build whatever they want without another State agency reviewing the plans and cost. 

From the County Council Press Release:  At 2 p.m. Monday in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room, the Education Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember Ervin and includes Councilmembers Rice and Phil Andrews, will discuss Montgomery County Public Schools’ (MCPS) preliminary request for Fiscal Year 2013 state aid for school construction. The request would be forwarded to the state’s Interagency Committee on School Construction. 


MCPS is requesting FY13 state aid of $194.7 million. Another $493.9 million in state aid eligibility for currently approved projects is assumed by the County for FYs 2014-18. 


From the County Council Education Committee Staff Report: 

Class Size Reduction Initiative One continuing area of  contention between MCPS and the State involves MCPS'  elementary school class size reduction (CSR) initiative.  From a capital perspective, this initiative results in space needs that exceed State aid eligibility guidelines for these schools.  Therefore, all of  the CSR schools in the current request (these schools are noted on the draft resolution) are likely to receive significantly less State aid than requested. 

Forward-Funding of  Projects As expected because State aid has been far less than the County's eligibility over the past several years, the County is now forward funding projects.  The County did this in the late 1980s and early 1990s and ultimately did receive State aid reimbursement. However, there are no guarantees.  Further, how the County funds this effort makes a difference.  If  the County forward-funds these projects with bonds, and State funding is not received within 18 months after the final  bills for a project are paid, the County will have to seek current revenue from the State in the future for reimbursement.  

Further complicating matters is the fact that the lAC has made clear that it is hesitant to grant planning approval to eligible projects as long as there is a backlog of  projects with planning approval awaiting funding.  The result is that the County has a list of  projects seeking both planning approval and construction funding  (see ©2-3  of  the draft resolution).  If the County forward-funds projects that have not yet received planning approval, there is no guarantee the State will consider reimbursing the County in the future.  

If State aid is not forthcoming for numerous projects on the eligibility list, the Council will need to decide whether to continue its approach of  forward-funding these projects, or whether to defer construction of  some projects pending future  receipt of  State aid.  Since most projects on the current State aid eligibility list will already be under construction by the time State action for FY12 is finalized, the only practical way to minimize forward-funding in the future would be to defer approval of  new projects in FY13  or beyond.