Members of the Montgomery County Council on Wednesday criticized the county school board’s decision to spend a budget surplus on employee compensation rather than shrinking classroom size.

“The decision last year to use the surplus in their health insurance account to avoid … an increase in the employee share of health insurance premiums … that’s a choice that I would highlight as an example where they could have reduced class size but instead they chose to keep their employee benefits better than other employees’,” said Councilman George Leventhal, D-at large.