When it comes to the distribution of the common wealth, there are supposed absolutes at the various levels of government. The Federal budget is now expressed in terms of funds available after FICA, debt service, or defense spending. Over the past few weeks, we have discussed some of these issues within the context of a never ratified, but generally accepted second bill of rights. Debt service is currently being discussed in DC, but that’s a dog and pony show. There are few alternatives to raising the debt ceiling. It’s merely a matter of what deal gets struck.
At the local level, schools have gained absolute status. Local governments fund the school board, who in turn, fund the individual line items of the annual budget. While this construct appears to add a layer of bureaucracy to county school systems, it is more of a benefit to have people intimately associated with school funding matters. Board members should have the ability to identify wants versus needs, and can act as the current fiscal situation allows. They are also elected officials, meaning that board members do not have the luxury of making decisions as untouchable political appointees.
While it would seem that this is a simple construct, the details are far more complex. Separate boards have the potential to create an adversarial relationship with the council that provides its funding. While it would seem that the BoE is subordinate to a county’s council, the various school boards have an ally in Annapolis. The State’s maintenance of effort (MOE) mandate says that per-pupil funding must not decrease in any year versus the prior year.
This type of law is designed to keep our children from being held hostage during budget negotiations; however, in its application, it rubber stamps self-perpetuating government by exempting half of a county’s budget from scrutiny. When a rare waiver is granted, it allows for the rhetoric to fly. When Montgomery County sought its recent waiver, BoE President Christopher Barclay stated, “The children of Montgomery County and Maryland have been stripped of a bedrock protection through this narrow reading of the maintenance-of-effort law. In Montgomery County alone, we are seeing what happens when a local government fails to meet its legal obligation.”
Mr. Barclay is not on an island. Eric Luedtke, teacher and member of the Board of Directors of the Montgomery County Education Association, chimes in with, “The fact is that without maintenance of effort, we will be doing less for our community’s children next year than we did this year. Is that really a precedent that we want to set?” I’m guessing that Misters Barclay and Luedtke never held a press conference to genuflect at the feet of the Montgomery County Council for their years of exceeding the mandate.
In the County of Kent, I believe we have been blessed with people who accepted the larger circumstance. While there was a brief dust up regarding teacher pay versus other employees who had recently taken pay cuts, the majority of the energy was focused on how to make lemonade from our economic lemons. Of course, it also helped that the size of the school system kept us out of the State penalty box.
All of the Eastern Shore self-congratulation aside, a change to the MOE mandate needs to be discussed in Annapolis. The State will surely take notice if Eastern Shore counties continue to be held harmless while not meeting the spirit of the mandate. Unfortunately, these circumstances are likely to last another three years. Locally speaking, schools are funded through property taxes. Property taxes are based upon tri-annual assessments, and we are coming out of a period where revenues have been buoyed by over-assessed property.
Of course, there is an analogous example of MOE on the revenue side of the spectrum. That concept would be the constant yield. Counties can raise tax rates to garner a constant yield (after a hearing). Hopefully it is coming together for everyone. The MOE mandate generally guarantees the growth in expenditure, and the constant yield mechanism matches the revenue. It took a quarter century of MOE, but we’ve reached the breaking point of self-perpetuating government.
We should not mistake money for effort. Oddly enough, more effort will likely be expended when there is less money to be used. That’s what makes writing this edition very difficult. Our educators are caring people, and we’re ultimately discussing their value. Their worth is immeasurable, so it is hard for me to write that the common wealth is best served by tinkering with the formulae used to pay them.
What Troup’s Corner would suggest for our 36th District delegation, is for MOE to be based upon a four year outlook. This would give the counties flexibility to adjust their budgets year to year to account for an unforeseen issue. It would guarantee each high school class similar funding to the next group. Decreases would not be too drastic, for they would have to be made up for within the two following years.
In order to avoid the “visceral” critique recently levied upon Troup’s Corner, let’s talk numbers. Here are the education budgets for the three recently completed budgets: 2010 $17.22 million, 2011 $18.17 million, 2012 $17.26 million. Using the 2010 figure as a launch point, if a standard of 1% per annum were established, the numbers would follow this pattern: 2010 $17.22 million, 2011 $17.39 million, 2012 $17.56 million, 2013 $17.74 million. For my four-year proposal, I submit to our readers that Kent County should be credited for the excess funding they provided, not penalized for failing to keep/raise that level of funding in 2012.
While the ideas presented here are likely far from perfect, hopefully the case has been made that current statute provides minimal flexibility to deal with trying economic times. Penalizing county governments means that the people who the State says they are helping with their mandate actually just wind up paying more to get less. I am somewhat reminded of a line from Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing Speech” that reads, “…Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”
Fun in Troup’s Corner: Two more pieces of reader feedback that are unlikely to appear on the Best of Troup’s Corner DVD case. “esoteric” –Well known from Worton “…a tad dense.” – Rock Hall resident. Also, yours truly would love for a local ice cream shop to carry teaberry ice cream. That ice cream company in Hershey, PA makes it. So, if you’re a distributor of said ice cream…hint. And if you are a seller, yeah I’m “that guy.”
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