On Monday, Gov. Robert Ehrlich recommended a $500 million boost in funding for public school construction, blunting charges that he has not put enough money in his capital budget to build and renovate schools.
The performance and funding of public schools have already been staked out as key issues on which the campaign for governor will be waged.
One recent radio spot recorded by Del. Anthony Brown, running mate to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley?s, attacked Ehrlich?s “failed record on education,” and said that the governor “cut millions in school construction.”
But State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, a Democrat who headed a task force on public school facilities, said the governor “didn?t cut school construction funds,” but “he didn?t put the money in the budget” that would have funded the $250 million a year her panel recommended in 2004 as a goal.
In an interview, Brown said Ehrlich had “under-funded” school construction by $300 million. “He could have done a lot more,” Brown said, “we have a lot of room in the debt affordability.”
Ehrlich apparently agreed. Monday, Budget Secretary C.J. Januszkiewicz recommended to the Capital Debt Affordability Committee that the state spend $250 million a year from fiscal 2008 through fiscal 2012, fully funding Kopp?s goal. The committee, which includes Kopp, Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, two Cabinet secretaries and a member of the public, unanimously approved the plan to float more state bonds.
In all four years of the Ehrlich administration, the legislature has added to the funding for school construction, but in his first two budgets it only added $47 million to the $194 million he proposed as budget deficits loomed.
In fact, pay-go funds ? operating surpluses ? designated for school construction by Gov. Parris Glendening were raided to help balance the budget in those years. In his last three years, Glendening topped or almost matched the $250 million goal set later, but 60 percent of that money was pay-go funding from surpluses.
“The first two years of the Ehrlich administration you didn?t have that to draw from,” said John Rohrer, coordinator of fiscal and policy analysis for the legislature, since deficits were project.
But Kopp pointed out that the 2003 numbers, identifying almost $4 billion in school construction needs, was only to bring buildings “up to adequacy,” and didn?t include items such as separate lunch rooms or health rooms.
