Montgomery County Public Schools misled parents and the public about the system’s budget needs, county lawmakers said Tuesday.
School system leaders say they had to eliminate about 1,350 positions during the recession, but they fail to mention they have also added nearly 1,200 positions, both teachers and support staff, Montgomery County Council members said. The net loss of jobs is 160 positions, a drop in work force of about 0.7 percent.
And for fiscal 2013, which begins July 1, County Executive Ike Leggett has backed the school board’s request to add teacher positions, which would give the school system a net of 229.5 more full-time employees than it had in fiscal 2009.
Despite the data, the school system has repeatedly used the 1,300 figure to describe the number of teachers and staff lost in the last three years.
“More than 1,300 positions have been eliminated districtwide, mainly teachers and staff who directly support instruction,” Board of Education President Shirley Brandman said in a cover letter that accompanied the board’s fiscal 2013 budget request. Brandman repeated the statistic in testimony at an April 11 public hearing on the county’s fiscal 2013 operating budget.
The misinformation has led to testimony and correspondence from parents of MCPS students, said Councilwoman Valerie Ervin, D-Silver Spring and chairwoman of the council’s Education Committee.
“Misinformation makes doing our job harder,” said Councilman Marc Elrich, D-at large.
But school system officials say the numbers are simply being interpreted differently.
“Those 1,350 positions are real teacher positions and other staff in schools that were cut,” said Marshall Spatz, director of MCPS’ Department of Management, Budget and Planning. “At the same time, we’ve had 9,000 additional students and we’ve had to add personnel and other costs. … That doesn’t replace the services that had to be cut.”
The dispute comes at a time when the school system’s latest financial data predict a roughly $30 million surplus at the end of the current fiscal year, a little more than half of which has been allocated toward MCPS’ fiscal 2013 operating budget, said Steve Farber, council staff director.
“At the end of the day, there’s no pain in that budget,” Ervin said.
