Dozens of state and local officials representing Montgomery County strategized Tuesday morning about easing an $80 million funding problem threatening school and other agency budgets.
The money is the amount the county must give the school system to ensure “maintenance of effort,” according to a state law that requires counties to fund school systems at consistent or increasing levels above a set minimum, even during an economic downturn. Local officials say it needs to be changed.
Unless the economy greatly improves, the law could become an enormous problem for the county budget — as it was this year.
“The law is inflexible,” said County Council President Phil Andrews told council peers, members of the county’s state delegation, school officials and staffers. “Legislators set it up to be applied in a reasonable way, but it hasn’t been.”
The law encourages counties to fund the schools at the state’s required minimum — not higher — because a higher amount would lock them into higher funding in future years, Andrews and others said.
“To the extent that we’ve picked up more than our share in years past, we ought to have a way to be able to rebalance that” during downturns, said Councilman Marc Elrich, D-at large.
The county, with support from the school system, asked the state for a waiver for the fiscal 2010 budget, explaining that $89 million in salary savings negotiated with the schools’ unions would allow the same level of educational programming while helping the county deal with a tough budget year.
But Maryland’s State Board of Education denied the waiver, saying the recession hurt all counties, and some found a way to put more money toward education.
The county still hasn’t figured out where to get the $80 million owed the school system under the law. The County Council proposed shifting the money to the schools for debts that were previously paid by the county, but a decision hasn’t been made.
State Sen. Rich Madaleno said the state Board of Education “destroyed maintenance of effort” with its “irrational” decision not to grant Montgomery’s waiver. “They’ve forced [legislators] to take action,” he said.
