Much as they had done nine days ago in begging for more school construction money, Baltimore City, Montgomery and Prince George?s County chief executives and school superintendents came hat in hand to Annapolis Wednesday pleading for more operating funds.
The officials supported Gov. Martin O?Malley?s plan to phase in the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI). This increased school funding, which officials promised in the original Thornton aid to education formula, is based on higher costs but former Gov. Robert Ehrlich never funded it.
In the campaign, O?Malley criticized Ehrlich for not funding the measure, but later decided to postpone it until fiscal 2009 because of budget limitations. Instead, he promised to make the GCEI a mandate in state law, like the rest of the Thornton funding.
For Baltimore, it would add another $89 per student in ?09, swelling to $316 per student three years later. Montgomery County would receive another $70 per student in the first year and additional $251 per student three years later. Prince George?s County would garner $99 per student at first and rise to $355 in fiscal 2012.
Most counties in the state would get smaller additional amounts for students.
Prince George?s Executive Jack Johnson said, “We?re very disappointed” about not receiving the money for fiscal 2008, but “we?re reconciled” to the idea.
“We all agree that it?s better that we don?t have to come back year after year” asking for the aid, as they had since officials passed the original Thornton bill, Johnson said.
“We?re doing our part” and “putting our fair share,” into schools, he said, a remark echoed by Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon, who said the city had used some of its unusual surplus to put more money into schools.
Both Dixon and Johnson told the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee that the Thornton funding helped their jurisdiction achieve higher test scores.
“We expected it,” Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said. “I think it is time for us.”
But Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-Somerset, likens the bill to the original Thornton measure, a mandated funding program without a way to pay for it. “How can you justify this?” he asked.
Here is what other counties would get per student under the Geographic Cost of Education Index
…………………………..FY 2009……………FY 2012
Anne Arundel…………$38…………………$133
Baltimore………………$17…………………$59
Carroll…………………..$29…………………$104
Harford…………………$0……………………$0
Howard…………………$31…………………$112
