WASTE: This Week Watch Superintendent Taylor Waste $43M+ on a Commercial Lease by Abandoning 30 Acres of FREE Board of Education Land

Source: 750 Progress Way

On Thursday, October 30, 2025, the Montgomery County Board of Education will unanimously vote to approve a Consent Agenda (no discussion) that includes a brand new lease of a massive warehouse in Gaithersburg.  

To date, Superintendent Taylor has pretended like finding a new MCPS warehouse was something the Board of Education was going to consider.  

Surprise! Superintendent Taylor has already negotiated the lease of a massive commercial space in Gaithersburg and the lease starts SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1st!  The lease commits the Board of Education to lease payments of at least $30 million dollars over the next 10 years and requires the Board of Education to spend $13 million dollars out of the Capital Budget to construct the interior of this currently empty warehouse.  

The commercial space that Superintendent Taylor is leasing is completely empty (see image above) and will require $13 million dollars to build out the interior of the warehouse.  The lease vote is on Thursday, October 30th, but the $13 million is part of the FY 2027 MCPS Capital Budget that hasn't been voted on yet.

Superintendent Taylor is going to force the Board of Education to commit to a FY 2027 Capital Budget proposal this week, even thought the Board of Education's vote on the proposed Capital Budget isn't until November 20, 2025.  

Presumably the lease of the commercial space will be paid out of the MCPS Operating Budget and the construction of the interior space will be funded out of the MCPS Capital Budget.  By forcing a vote on the lease this week, Superintendent Taylor will force the Board of Education to commit $13 million of the Capital Budget to the construction of the interior of the warehouse before the Board of Education even considers any of the Capital Budget needs of any of MCPS' 211 schools. 

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In order to make use of this massive Commercial Warehouse, Superintendent Taylor is going to abandon 4 Board of Education sites totaling over 30 acres of free public school land.  The land that Taylor is going to abandon is owned by the Board of Education and is free of mortgages, rents and property taxes.  Taylor has not put forth any justification for the abandonment of free public school land in favor of Leased Commercial land that will create ongoing debt (with an escalation clause) for the Board of Education for at least the next 10 to 20 years.  

Here are the Board of Education owned public school sites that Superintendent Taylor is abandoning: 

Source:  MCPS Real Property Inventory for 2025

This is from Superintendent Taylor's recently released FY 2027 Capital Budget proposal.  This page shows the cost of building the interior of the Leased Commercial space.  Taylor did not disclose this cost on his October 30th Action Item Resolution for the Board of Education vote. 

Source:  MCPS Capital Improvements Program/Master Plan

This is how MCPS' funding and resources are wasted without public notice or opportunity to comment.

Response to OpEd from President of Taxpayers League:

Response from Esther Wells, President of Montgomery County Taxpayers League to March 29, 2025, OpEd on Bethesda Today. 

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This OpEd is disingenuous. “The County Council now needs to decide: Does it invest in education or not?” 

Taxpayers have consistently funded MCPS far above the required levels. So,that’s not the right question to ask. 

The real question is what accountability will MCPS provide Students & Taxpayers in the form of academic ROI [Return on Investment] if we fund MCPS over $250M higher than required to per State law? 

Test scores are stagnant/declining, public safety in our schools are at unacceptable levels, MCPS struggles to ensure every classroom has a teacher in it daily, $168M funds wasted with EV buses that don’t work, multi-million dollar school bus tracking app that can’t protect student data, so that gets canned. 

Millions spent annually in legal fees, embezzlement of funds in transportation dept, the list goes on. 

Let’s balance the conversation and stop making it seem like Taxpayers have not prioritized funding to our schools, we have. 

What we’ve lacked is accountability of the investment. 

Can someone please provide a SMART goal on what the ROI will be to fully fund MCPS in FY2026? Thanks

Esther L. Wells on X: "@bethesda_today This OpEd is disingenuous. “The County Council now needs to decide: Does it invest in education or not?” Taxpayers have consistently funded MCPS far above the required levels. So,that’s not the right question to ask. The real question is what accountability will MCPS provide https://t.co/XY63Y5esTf" / X