Fully funding the Prince George’s County Board of Education’s bare-bones budget request will be part of County Executive Jack Johnson’s operating budget proposal announcement today.
“These economic times have created the most difficult budget season we have ever had,” Johnson said in a speech on the county’s economy last week. And while his proposal will continue a “modest rate of growth … I caution, however, that this budget assumes no further erosion of the national and state economy.”
But, “we will honor the Board of Education’s request again,” he said.
Since Johnson took office in 2002, the county’s budget has grown by more than $1 billion, much of that coming from the $600 million jump in education funding during the same period.
But the $1.78 billion budget proposed by the Board of Education for the next fiscal year puts an end to that steady climb.
It represents a 1.4 percent increase as state and county funding levels have come in lower than expected due in part to declining enrollment while program costs continue to rise, according to board members.
Education funding represented about 62 percent of the current fiscal year’s $2.6 billion operating budget.
Under the board’s current proposal, 372 vacant staff positions will remain unfilled, 70 central administration and staff support positions will be cut, and 275 jobs will be dropped due to fewer
registered students.
Johnson has already been slicing into the budget as economic woes have come home to roost, including a hiring freeze on all non-public-safety-related positions announced late last year. Overtime in the Police Department has been limited to court appearances and emergency situations.
Earlier this year, Johnson predicted that falling housing values and other economic ailments would contribute to a $100 million budget shortfall in the coming fiscal year that he and the County Council will start planning for on Monday. The next fiscal year starts on July 1.
