$128,378 Still in MCPS Budget for Logo Gifts for Administrators

What's more important than Special Education teachers?

Well, MCPS logo clothing and gifts, of course!

Superintendent Taylor's list of "cuts" to the Board of Education's proposed budget only includes cuts to staffing and curriculum.  Superintendent Taylor does not make one single cut to vendors paid out of the MCPS Operating Budget.  A number of those vendor "contracts" are no-bid and have been in place for decades.  

That means the logo clothing and gifts budget is safe for FY 2026!  

4Imprint Inc  $128,378 paid by MCPS in first 7 months of Fiscal Year 2025.

As per usual, Administrators Get Gifts at Meetings While @mcps Teachers Continue to Beg for Supplies

In the Tweet shown below from an MCPS Central Services Administrator you can see that at every seat in the meeting room is a gift for each attendee.  Here's an up close picture of what we believe each person attending the meeting was given.   

Central Services Administrator
📖Professional Learning 📝
💕Happening now💕

🥤Smoothie demo at breakfast
💻AI professional learning
📝Discussion with executive leadership
And @MCAAPMD updates @MCPS @MCPSWellAware pic.twitter.com/qT12ZnEsMw

— Dr. Cara Grant (@CaraGrant11) January 31, 2024

Today is @mcps Superintendent Gives out Swag to Administrator's Day. It happens once a month at administrators' meeting. Do teachers still need supplies?

Thread by @MCPS on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App

Congratulations to Dr. Kara Trenkamp, Director of Digital Innovation on her Superintendent recognition at today’s Administrator and Supervisory Meeting. @ktrenkamp2 #MCPSStaffSpotlight

Congratulations to Tracey Oliver-Gary - Supervisor of Pre-K-12 Social Studies

For exemplifying outstanding leadership and her work on Remembrance and Reconciliation Month, and most recently International Holocaust Remembrance Day and much more #MCPSStaffSpotlight

Congratulations to Dr. Shawaan Robinson - Principal at Briggs Chaney Middle School

Recognized for unpacking the antiracist audit with student focus groups, capturing student voices, forming a principal advisory groups #MCPSStaffSpotlight

Last but not least, Congratulations @Goshen_Grizzly for the WIN program she led while at Goshen ES. ICYMI here is what the program is all about —>  #MCPSStaffSpotlight

• • •

Tues. Jan. 12th: Superintendent Jack Smith Will Hide $1.3M in Gifts to the City of Gaithersburg from the Board of Education.

On Tuesday, January 12, 2021, Superintendent Jack R. Smith will present the Montgomery County Board of Education with a memorandum demanding that they vote to pay for gifts to the City of Gaithersburg.  Superintendent Smith will tell the Board of Education that they MUST give these gifts to the City in exchange for the City handing over land for a new elementary school.  

But, the City of Gaithersburg has already handed over the Deed to this land "free of charge."  

On December 3, 2020, the Board of Education already  voted to accept the Deed without having to pay anything for the land.  

Yet, on January 12th, Superintendent Jack Smith will tell the Board of Education they now must buy gifts, specifically an artificial turf football field and baseball field bleachers, for the City of Gaithersburg in order to get the Deed to the City of Gaithersburg land for the new elementary school. 

Why did Superintendent Jack R. Smith hide these gifts from the Board of Education when they voted to accept this "free" land? 

Further, why does Superintendent Jack R. Smith's January 12th memo only list the cost for two of the seven gifts he has already promised to the City of Gaithersburg in exchange for this Deed? 

Here is what Superintendent Jack R. Smith committed to buy for the City of Gaithersburg according to the Land Acquisition Agreement that he signed:  

• County Board must pay for the cost and expense of all off-site easements. (Unknown total cost)

• County Board must pay for design and construction of an artificial turf field up to $800,000.

•  County Board must pay for the rough grade of the field, storm drainage and a sub base for the artificial turf field. ( average cost of grading, storm drainage and sub base in 2020 is $320,000)

• County Board is required to pay up to 25% for the future replacement of the artificial turf field (Unknown cost – Average cost of artificial turf football field surface in 2021 is $400,000. 25% of that cost in 2021 would be $100,000.  Future cost of artificial turf surface is unknown at this time.  

• County Board must pay for new, additional bleachers for the City of Gaithersburg. $26,000

• County Board must pay for 5 parking spaces dedicated to the City park visitors. (Approximate cost could be $10,000.)

• County Board must pay for a City tot lot. [Approximate cost $100,000 based on cost of recent City of Gaithersburg tot lot project.

The approximate current and future cost of the items that the Board of Education must pay in exchange for the "free" Deed from the City of Gaithersburg is $1,356,000. 

How does $1,356,000 = free of charge? 

Where is Superintendent Smith getting $1,356,000 from in the MCPS Operating Budget to pay for these gifts to the City of Gaithersburg? 

MCPS might extend timeline of boundary study for new Gaithersburg elementary school #GiftsforGaithersburg #HiddenPerks #Teacher$$forCityGifts

 A boundary study to determine which students will attend a new elementary school in Gaithersburg might last longer as Montgomery County Public Schools grapples with what it hopes is a temporary decline in enrollment due to COVID-19.

In April, the school district began a routine boundary study after authorizing the construction of a new elementary school in the city, intended to relieve crowding at several schools.

The new school will sit on a 6-acre section of Kelley Park, on Victory Farm Drive, and have space for about 740 students.

The $26 million project is expected to be completed in September 2022...

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-might-extend-timeline-of-boundary-study-for-new-gaithersburg-elementary-school/

PCMC NOTE:  The school project project is actually more like $28 Million because MCPS is throwing in an artificial turf football field, bleachers, a tot lot and lighting for the City of Gaithersburg. Gifts to the City that the Board of Education never voted on. Superintendent Jack Smith is just a giver. Why not give gifts to the City of Gaithersburg during a pandemic when education funding is already stressed? No worries for Jack Smith. He had an extra $2 Million sitting in a drawer.