As Student Enrollment Slows MCPS Officials Take Another Look At The Budget

Updated at  2:48 p.m. on May 24th

For the second year in a row, Montgomery County Public school officials over projected the number of new students that would be enrolling in the district. This could mean less funding in the future, says Superintendent Jack Smith.

The Montgomery County Council Thursday finalized their $5.8 billion budget, despite the projected drop in students, the council was able to find funding for the school system through a combination of state and local contributions. While the formula fixes the problem, for now, it means less money in future fiscal years. The state is changing its funding formula starting in the fiscal year 2020, which could also mean less money allocated to county schools in coming years.

“This year we built a budget based on expecting about 1,200 new students next September,” Smith said. “We’re actually thinking at this point in the year we’re getting 700 or 800.”

For the past 10 years, county schools increased by about 2,000 new students every year. There were a total of 159,010 students enrolled in 2017 and 161,546 in 2018. While that enrollment is more, year over year, it was less than MCPS expected to have.

“We certainly don’t want to go to where we have a loss of student population,” Smith said...

https://wamu.org/story/19/05/23/second-year-of-student-growth-decline-for-mcps-could-spell-trouble-for-funding/