School Board Newsletter #51, January 28, 1999

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Subj: School Issues Newsletter #51
Date: 1/28/99 2:53:20 PM EST
From: jklagge@bev.net (Jim Klagge)

Dear Friends,

This will have to be briefer than I would like, but here's an overview of the budget:

Tonight at 7pm the school board will deliberate about the budget proposal. We will endorse a proposal for public consideration and a hearing at CHS on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 7:30pm. Then based on that hearing we will decide what proposal to send forward to the BoS for their consideration. In making a budget proposal to the BoS the SB was to weigh the importance of setting out what the real needs of the district are, and yet at the same time offering a proposal that is financially possible. Different SB members tend to make different judgements about how to weigh these two considerations--some emphasize the importance of setting out those needs almost regardless of the financial implications. Others, including myself, want the proposal to include a description of the real needs, but be trimmed down to a point where our proposal can be considered financially realistic. It seems that regardless of what we propose, someone will characterize it as a "wish list". It is very hard to determine exactly what is a "need" and what is not. I think we tend to use the word "need" a bit too freely, and I think that can undermine the credibility of the request. Differences between SB members over this issue are, I think, differences about what is the best "strategy" to use in budget discussions, rather than differences over what the schools should get. In general the issue is: are we likely to get more by asking for more? Or are we better off asking for less in the hopes that that request is taken more seriously by the public and the BoS? Or, is what we end up getting virtually unconnected with how much we ask for?

Over the past several years the SB has put its primary emphasis on reducing class sizes. That was the number one goal of the Focus: 2006 plan, and it is also the area that is most visible to parents and children. This has been costly, but has also been pretty successful, especially at the elementary level. Since the total SB budget each year is determined by the BoS, choices for what to spend money on inevitably mean that money is not spent on other things. Less visible things have suffered as a result--teacher salaries, bus replacements, maintenance, supplies and equipment, technology. This has created a sort of backlog of needs--which needs to be addressed. These kinds of needs, precisely because they do not have the visibility of class size are hard to get people excited about, but they are also important.

-Teacher salaries: When you compare the salary-scales of our teachers to those of other counties and cities in surrounding areas we come out very unfavorably. This is especially true at the beginning level. Furthermore, trying to catch up with other districts is made difficult by the fact that they are moving forward as well. The kind of increases we have offered over the last few years--in the 3-4% range--has not allowed us to catch up.

Although we are an attractive system for reasons other than salary, and although we have a good supply of teachers from local universities, these factors are not sufficient. We are not always getting our first choices when we offer jobs, and we need to diversify our staff beyond the output of local universities. Finally, there is a predicted teacher-shortage over the next several years as many current teachers retire, and new students become school-aged. If we are to flourish through that crunch, we have to be able to attract good teachers. Generally the BoS has reacted negatively to salary increases beyond the rate of inflation, but we simply can't be satisfied with that. (Each 1% that we increase salaries on average costs us $453,000.)

-Unavoidable increases: There are several costs that are going to increase next year regardless of any choices we might make now. Debt service (which means paying for construction mainly) will increase $619,000, mainly due to the new HS in Elliston; benefits costs will increase over $600,000 due to rate increases for the Virginia Retirement System and health insurance premiums; rate increases for utilities of over $100,000. There you have nearly $1.4 million in increases off the top.

-Textbooks: In the past there has been a separate account from which we paid for textbooks. It accumulated money from the state and some local contribution year after year and was spent as needed. The needs fluctuated considerably from year to year, but the unspent money could be carried over. Last year the county eliminated that fund, so now textbooks have to be funded out of, and in competition with other basic, operating expenses. The system has estimated our textbook needs over the next several years and averaged that out so that each year we need to set aside nearly $500,000. Of course we can let textbooks age more and put off the expenses to a later year, but that is not acceptable planning and education.

-Opening the MS in Auburn (from the converted Riner Elementary): To equip and furnish this building as a middle school we need $320,000.

-Technology: The state provided no new money for technology last year! We have great needs here. And we have to institute a new system-wide student management system that may cost as much as $380,000.

I'm not trying to detail all of the items we have been looking at, but just give you a flavor of the kind of things that have to be attended to even though they are not generally visible.

When the administration first calculated the expenditures we would need to make to catch up on all these kinds of things, that suggested a budget increase of over $12.5 million (=22.3%). Then the administration went through two rounds of cuts to these expenditures and sent to us in January a budget that sought almost $8.3 million in increases (=14.9%). Now we have to decide what budget we want to request from the BoS. I want to hold the requested increase below 10%. Even though I think a very strong case can be made for expenditures beyond that, I think we should offer a budget that can be taken seriously as a real proposal. Even 10% is a lot, but making those kind of choices at this point shows, I think, that we are serious about working with the BoS even while we exercise our responsibility of advocating for the education of children in the county.

We hope to have a copy of the budget request soon on our web site at www.mcps.org.

Jim Klagge
Chair and District F Representative
Montgomery County School Board.

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