Montgomery County Council President Valerie Ervin repeatedly asserted the council’s budgetary authority over the school board Tuesday, as the long-standing power struggle comes to a head this week. Ervin criticized the school board for bemoaning the council’s decision to cut $25 million from the schools’ current $1.4 billion budget in fiscal 2012.

“What I think is extraordinarily important, as far as Montgomery County Public Schools goes, is that if you’ve been hearing from them, they are basically saying the sky is falling, children are going to be impacted, schools are going to be destroyed,” Ervin said. “The cuts to the school system, in reality, [are] very minimal.”