A Maryland state lawmaker’s proposal to shift some of the costs of teacher pensions from the state to counties woulsd hit Montgomery County especially hard, county officials said.
State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Calvert, said last week he plans to introduce legislation that would have counties pay for pension costs for new hires and pay increases to current educators.
Montgomery County Board of Education Vice President Patricia O’Neill said the board is “vehemently” opposed to any plan to “pass back” pension costs.
“The damage to education would be huge,” O’Neill said. Montgomery County officials said the cash-strapped county can ill-afford to cover any new costs. Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett said the issue is a “line in the sand” for the county.
County Council President Phil Andrews agreed, saying that any potential increase would have a disproportionate effect on Montgomery County.
Maryland is one of the few states that shoulders the entire cost of teacher pensions, which went up 22 percent in the past year to a total of about $770 million. Miller said the state can no longer afford to pay the entire cost, and needed help from the counties.
Montgomery County is home to the biggest school system in Maryland and spends about half of its $4 billion annual budget on education.
County officials said they did not yet have a figure for how much Miller’s proposal would initially cost the county, but expressed concerns that the state would eventually transfer the entire cost of teacher pensions to the county.
For the current fiscal year, the state is spending about $125 million on teacher pension costs for Montgomery County, up about $10 million from the previous fiscal year, according to Essie McGuire, a legislative analyst for the Montgomery County Council.
Requiring the county to cover a portion of pension costs arising from new hires and pay increases would be “devastating” to the county’s budget, said Bonnie Cullison, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, a union that represents 12,000 county educators.
Cullison said the county hired about 800 new educators this fiscal year. She said the county would have to cut school programs, increase class size and possibly eliminate jobs to make up for any state pension monies lost.
The county is facing a $450 million shortfall for next fiscal year’s budget, according to Leggett’s spokesman, Patrick Lacefield.
The state is facing its own budget deficit of about $2 billion, but Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed budget does not call for shifting the teacher pension costs to counties. “We hope the legislature will follow the governor’s lead,” Lacefield said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
