Board of Education

Board Columns, Presentations and Speeches

2009

• Budget Column - November 2009
  
• H1N1 Column - October 2009
  

2008

• Opening Statement to Commissioners
• CIP Testimony

Col. Donald Wade, Board Chairman
Budget Column
November 2009
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The message from Annapolis this week is that public schools should brace for state budget cuts. One senator told school superintendents they are going to have to absorb the coming fiscal pain and start taking a portion of the "hit," inferring a common misconception that school systems have not been affected by cuts.

Our message back is that we feel the pain and we are already dealing with two years of budget "hits." Charles County Public Schools has absorbed $10.4 million in state and county cuts to its budget the past two years, and our pain includes elimination of jobs, reduction of programs, increases in class sizes and frozen wages for employees.

Public schools have not been exempt from the magnitude of the recession, but the school system is effectively managing the economic crisis. That doesn't mean we are not hurting. With a $10.4 million cut, there is impact. Our computers are older, our programs are smaller, and class sizes are larger. Employees did not receive salary increases – not step and scale, and not cost-of-living. Staff positions were frozen and later eliminated to cover cost increases in health insurance, transportation and utilities that must be paid despite decreases in income.

But we have a commitment to our students that in the face of these cuts we will continue to provide professional services and keep as much of the impact as possible out of the classroom. We will do this while looking at creative ways to keep schools academically strong and safe. We will do this while finding ways to service students dealing with personal economic-induced problems of their own.

As educators, we are trained to look ahead rather than behind. Knowledge of history, however, is important as we work to maintain academic excellence and vision in a time of economic uncertainty. This year, we received maintenance of effort from the county, and had to forward our entire $2.5 million from our rainy day fund to balance the budget. The net state cut to our budget was $2.6 million. Two months into the school year, the commissioners took another $934,000 from the Board. Last year, the county cut our funding by $6.9 million.

While many politicians maintain that education was held harmless or spared budget cuts, Charles County was one of nine counties in Maryland that received state funding cuts.

Where the state legislators are right is that our cuts, while painful, have not been lethal. Our pain is somewhat masked by stimulus funds from the federal government. Our budget secret is that without stimulus, our schools would be hurting more. For example, the real state cut to the school system was $6.3 million, but we were able to backfill $3.7 million of that loss with stimulus funding, resulting in a net state reduction of $2.6 million. What we were able to save with stimulus funding were research and assessment, professional development and extended learning opportunities such as the after-school programs, the summer reading academy, SAT prep and the highly successful Bridge Program. The danger in using stimulus funding for these programs is that in two years, the funding disappears and these programs need to be put back into the operating budget or eliminated. All are proven to help the academic achievement of students.

Stimulus funds are designed to augment education spending, not replace it. Federal regulations restrict the school system from using the bulk of stimulus funds for anything but one-time costs in special education and at our six Title I schools. Frankly, we are tired of the same old talking points by legislators who know our fiscal realities but act like they have not passed any of the side effects of budget cuts to education.

I offer this information to help the community clear up misconception that the school system has been immune to budget cuts. Our employees, students and parents all understand the sobering economic crisis still ahead.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has recently been quoted in newspapers saying: "Public education, K-12, is the only member of the herd that hasn't taken a trip to the slaughterhouse." I maintain that it is not in the best interest of anyone to send education to the slaughterhouse.

We feel we have been walking hand-in-hand with the herd as we managed our recession-fueled $10.4 million hit. The Board of Education understands the state and county cannot produce money they do not have. But, for elected officials to pretend public schools have not taken any cuts is to ignore the sacrifices made by school employees and students in a cooperative effort to manage rather than flaunt our pain and our "hits."

Col. Donald Wade, Board Chairman
H1N1 Column
October 2009
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CIP Testimony
Col. Donald Wade
Chairman, Board of Education of Charles County
January 30, 2008
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