Budget Comment: NOT ONE CENT OVER MOE

FY 2014 Budget Comment

 

To:       County Executive Ike Leggett

Cc:       County Council, Board of Education, MCEA, MCCPTA, Delegation

From:    Frederick Stichnoth, fred.stichnoth@yahoo.com

Date:    January 29, 2013

 

            For the following reasons, please limit the County’s budget allocation to Montgomery County Public Schools to the minimum Maintenance of Effort requirement.

 

            1. MCPS’ lack of budget transparency and targeting. Dr. Starr’s Transition Team noted parent “concerns…as to how the equitable allocation of resources is being determined and assessed;” and recommended “an examination of the district’s current practice of allocating resources to students and schools to ensure that funds are equitably distributed to provide all students, in all schools, with the resources necessary to achieve success.”  MCPS Core Values commit MCPS to “Distribute resources as necessary to provide extra supports and interventions so all students can achieve.” Maryland ’s Thornton Commission found that “systems would need an additional $9,165 [in 2002] for each student eligible for free and reduced price meals, 1.39 times the base cost figure….” (In other words, the cost of providing an equal educational outcome to a low-income student equals 239 percent of the cost of producing the same outcome in a student who is not low-income. MCPS’ attempt to accomplish that objective in an underfunded school environment siphons base level support away from non-FARMS students, leaving everyone in the school at a relative disadvantage.) The forthcoming County Council Office of Legislative Oversight report is expected to show insufficient progress in closing the achievement gap, particularly in the poorer southeast portion of the County. This undermines not only the life opportunities of these students, but also their neighborhoods (as evidenced by the flight of white and middle class students over the last decade) and the social and economic stability of the County as a whole. MCPS has not be accounted transparently for the subsidy (positive or negative) to these down- and east-county schools, and lacks the political will to fund them appropriately. It’s wasting our money.

 

            2. Preempting County budget discretion. The County must prioritize service provision to accomplish short- and long-term strategic objectives. The required MOE minimum preempts County discretion over a full half of its budget. While education is important to me, to the Superintendent and to the County, its strategic priority within the portfolio of County services must be determined by elected representatives with overall responsibility—the Executive and Council.

 

            3. MCPS cabal wags the MoCo dog. The Superintendent’s budget request, a mere $10 million (0.4 percent) above the MOE minimum requirement, appears to be a test and provocation. This affront complements the Board’s lawsuit against the County, enactment of the MOE amendments and the FY 2013 MCPS salary increases. MCPS’ budget tactics are determined by the Superintendent and the union officials. MCPS is immune from political check, because its Board is selected by the unions and subordinated to the Superintendent: it is a puppet. By contrast, the Executive and Council are invested by the voters with political authority; they must exercise it—not abandon it before the Superintendent-union cabal.