...The most recent monthly financial report was presented to the Board of Education on June 13, and reflects financial conditions through April 30 (attached circles 1-9). The report shows that MCPS currently projects a total year-end surplus of $21.8 million. This total consists of $17.9 million in projected expenditure surplus and $3.9 million in projected revenue surplus...
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Monday, July 8, 2013
MCPS Posts $21.8 Million Surplus
Montgomery County Council Education Committee for July 8, 2013:
But rips off the students with disabilities at Rock Terrace.
ReplyDeleteTeacher: Maybe now I won't have to buy yellow sticky notes, crayons, pencils, glue, etc for my students to use in our classroom. Would be nice to have supplies!
ReplyDeleteWrong. MCPS has a surplus every year and the Teachers' Union consents to let the administrators deny funds to classrooms while funding trips and perks for administrators.
DeleteWhere is the BOE and Starr this summer? On a tax payer paid for trip.
Teachers - keep buying your school supplies. You have made a decision to support union leaders that don't care if you are out of pocket cash for classroom supplies. It's your choice.
And to those of you whose children don't have textbooks, MCPS has a surplus in that line item too! It's just that your kids won't be getting textbooks. Too bad you don't live in Bethesda. In Bethesda each child receives 2 textbooks, so they can leave one at school and leave one at home. Teachers are well-represented at the secret budget sessions, so they know this is going on too, and they endorse it through their MCEA leadership.
ReplyDeleteTeacher: I don't support this union. Some time back your readers looked into what it would take to get rid of NEA and put another union in place. How far did that go?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a choice.....we're there for the children and if they need supplies, then we will end up buying them.
That's a large surplus!! I'm projected to have 30 students in my class this year. Why not hire more teachers with the surplus?
Parents have the power in this..........not the teachers.
What? You are a teacher yet you flunk basic democracy? You always have a voice. You choose to remain silent. You are free to write a letter to the editor, a letter to this blog, and free to show up at a BOE meeting and give public comment. You are free to use any public method to speak out! But, you and many other teachers choose to remain silent! YOUR CHOICE!
DeleteDon't pin this on parents and taxpayers! We do NOT have a seat at the secret budget meetings!
Year after year Montgomery County voters vote for the Apple Ballot because you tell us to! We do it for teachers! Teachers have the power!
Ummm...... we teachers don't get invited to the secret budget meetings either.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, not all teachers blindly go out and vote the Apple Ballot on Election Day, and not all teachers vote for the same old same old candidates for school board. Some of us celebrate when new candidates come out of the woodwork, and even though we may vote for them, there is no guarantee they'll win; the teachers' votes alone aren't enough.
And do you know for a fact that the teacher above has NOT written letters to editors, or directly addressed MCEA and/or NEA?
And there are occasions when teachers who speak out become unemployed teachers. Who has the power in situations like that? Who has a voice when an administrator is a bully?
Yes you do! Wow. Teacher - educate thy self! YOUR union is an MCPS budget PARTNER! YOUR union sits at the secret budget meetings. YOU have a seat at the table where the MCPS budget is set.
DeleteYou don't vote for the Apple Ballot? Really? Let's hear from teacher who will publicly state they do not support the Apple Ballot - names, please.
No, I said speak out publicly to the BOE, not behind closed door union talk. Let's see teachers at evening BOE meetings - that's where parents are. Where are teachers? Let's see teachers show up and complain that they are having to buy classroom supplies while MCPS has a $21.8 million surplus.
Teachers have become unemployed for speaking out? When? Where is their public statement to the BOE, Council?
Newspapers won't print letters? Send them to us. We will.
Teachers - time to learn:
ReplyDeleteThe Harvard paper on your partnership with MCPS at the budget table -
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2013/05/soon-to-be-moviethe-unions-in.html
Hi Crunchy: I have definitely heard of teachers who are bullied by their principals. What I don't understand is why MCEA isn't more help in these situations. Perhaps it may be because MCEA is a "sweetheart" union that is more concerned with power, prestige, and "insider" status with MCPS than doing their duty of Fair Representation to its dues paying members. I know if I was required to pay shakedown fees to an organization that didn't represent me, I would be looking for a new organization.
ReplyDeleteI'm not anti-union in principal. Many years ago I belonged to one myself. It is theoretically possible to de-certify your current bargaining agent. Maybe visible rumblings of discontent would be enough to encourage MCEA to actually REPRESENT their dues-paying members?
Lyda, I'm not currently teaching, but one of my MCPS situations in particular was a nightmare of incompetent and vindictive administrations (plural). MCEA was utterly useless; the representative (who, if I remember the name correctly, is now a politician) I asked for help actually dealt with it so ineptly that it was like throwing gasoline on a fire, and I ended up leaving that position for another after two years (which was at least one year two long in retrospect). The principal in my next position was so utterly supportive and competent and reasonable that it took that for me to realize just how awful that other situation had been. There are good ones out there, to be sure, but as PC has reported, there are some pretty bad situations out there in MCPS too.
DeleteIf I returned to MCPS, I'm not sure if I would belong to MCEA. The way that situation was handled was THE worst thing he could have done "for" me, and I have a long memory for stuff like that.
crunchydeb and teachers: union formation is a hard-fought battle. If you look at unions in the US, you can see how hard people worked and fought, and I mean physically got beat up, for the right to unionize. That means people just like you stepped up and built the union from nothing, and in the face of goons and scabs. I am tired of hearing how teachers in Montgomery County claim they have no voice in their 'union' and can't do anything about it. Step up, and start your own union if you are bullied or if the union you have, the MCEA, doesn't really represent you. If you are too scared to start your own union, get in the MCEA and start representing your fellow teachers. From reading this blog it appears there are plenty of teachers who would be willing to start a new organization that really represents ALL the teachers. Go for it.
ReplyDeleteSo MCPS squirreled away dedicated transportation funds and instead required parents to take time off from work to supply their own vehicles, gas, and driving services to transport students to off-site athletic competitions. This was tantamount to imposing additional activity fees on student athletes. Sure, in the big picture $200K is not a huge sum. But these funds could have gone a long way toward easing the burdens on the families of student athletes. With the funds having not been used does this surplus (falsely) suggest that the money was never needed in the first place?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, MCPS did not independently 'squirrel away' funds. People voted for the BOE members who hired Starr, who hired the staff and manages this $2.1B budget, which includes this 'surplus.' The BOE is elected. If citizens in this county don't like this, why do they keep re-electing incumbents? My conclusion: this is what the citizens of this county want. If anyone sees anything different, please post here.
ReplyDeletePaula, You are correct. This has been going on for a decade. The Parents' Coalition has reported on MCPS surplus and slush funds for years. No elected officials in Montgomery County care. The Montgomery County Council and County Executives have been WELL AWARE of the MCPS surplus. They are more than happy to keep the surplus a secret. It's their little gift to the Superintendent, extra cash to spend without oversight.
DeleteParents, you've been played, for a long time. Will you wake up or keep on repeating the MCCPTA scripted public comment at budget time? The eternal "we have a budget crisis" scripted words that are a joke to the County Council?