Students and teachers in suburban Washington school districts likely will bear the brunt of bad budgets next year, since “easy” central office cuts already have been made.
Montgomery County cut back its central office bureaucrats to just over 800 people last year, down from nearly 1,300 in 2009, according to numbers collected by the Washington Area Boards of Education.
Prince George’s County schools slashed the central office to pre-2000 levels, to 900 people, down from more than 1,000 10 years ago, including eight people from the high-paying “leadership team” advising the superintendent.
In the Washington suburbs, only Loudoun County’s central office crept up to 416 this year, from 410 in 2009.
Smaller central office cuts were seen last year in Fairfax County, which fell by about 30 people to about 1,200 overall, supporting the largest public school population in the area.
Schools in the District of Columbia were not included in the report.
Montgomery’s cuts occurred mainly among analysts and clerical positions — essentially, the people who crunched the numbers, and the people who answered their phones. “Management” positions — higher paid directors and the analysts’ analysts — increased by about 100 people.
“The central office folks are thin,” said Montgomery school board member Pat O’Neill. “And of course you’ve got to have people in the schools, running the schools, but there’s a certain amount of central office support that needs to help them out.”
Montgomery Superintendent Jerry Weast will release his requested operating budget for next school year on Wednesday. Other districts will follow in the coming weeks and months, but none are likely to bring cheers from the community. Across the region, officials have warned of class size increases and the disappearance of prized programs.
“Happy days are not here again,” O’Neill said.
Rosalind Johnson, a Prince George’s school board member, said the county had already cut most of the low-hanging fruit.
“We’re at a point now where it’s a matter of what’s the number-one triple-A priority, and what’s the number-one double-A priority. They’re all first.”
As central office positions declined slightly since 2008-09, the number of classroom teachers increased in every suburban district except for Montgomery, Prince George’s and Prince William counties.
