Battle Lines

The fight over the School Board budget is a long, long way from being over, as noted in the article in today's Capital.

One of the interesting things to note from the article is that both the Superintendent and the Board are starting to back away from the notion of an increase in the piggyback tax. This despite the fact that the Board's legislative agenda clearly supports(pages 6-7):

• Consideration of all available revenue options to support Maryland’s public schools.
• The County Government’s full utilization of the increase in property tax rates permitted by the 1992 property tax revenue cap. Such utilization will provide elected officials increased flexibility and options to raise revenues required to ensure the success of each and every student in Anne Arundel County Public Schools.
• Full utilization of the county’s piggyback income tax to the extent currently authorized by law.

Thankfully, the entire Board is not necessarily on board with this Legislative Agenda, as you can see through the meeting minutes of the 12/20/2006 Board of Education meeting and the spirited discussion Messrs. Bernson and Leahy (both good men) had regarding their issues with the agenda. Here is an important pullout from those minutes regarding Mr. Bernson and the legislative program:

Mr. Bernson offered a final summary comment. From his perspective in drafting the substitute, he personally viewed the pre-existing document as an unacceptable, politically left-wing document that he could never support, and it essentially calls for – there are many different things in there – but the essence is that the Board needs to go to the legislature and ask them to throw additional money at the Board, and that money will be the Board’s fantasy and Mr. Bernson cannot support that. Hence, he drafted the substitute document that takes a more traditional approach to education and seeks to stay neutral on certain questions of funding. It certainly advocates for increased funding where it is appropriate, but in general seeks legitimate reform and not just additional monies.

All of the above, once again, goes back to the concept of needing to have an elected Board of Education.

Moving on, Dr. Maxwell went on to state that, according to the article, "he'd support any tax hike to boost revenue for schools." This despite the fact that, once again, the article does not indicate that the Superintendent and the Board are considering the effectiveness of the programs that they propose being fully funded.

One of the things that is really dispiriting about the article is this quote:

"While there were some inefficiencies, the administrative pieces where those inefficiencies were really only account for 10 percent of the budget," said Penny Cantwell, a co-chairman of Dr. Smith's budget task force. "From that viewpoint, we wouldn't be looking at a huge cost savings anyway."

10 percent of the budget is approximately $92,000,000; just a little less than the proposed increase Maxwell wishes to see, and wishes to be funded through taxes. So, in the eyes of some, we should keep existing inefficiencies in order to artificially inflate the budget by 10 percent in order to call for additional funding and tax increases? Am I reading this correctly?

It is going to be imperative that the County Executive and the Republican Members of the County Council hold the line on this issue. We cannot allow for the Superintendent and the Board of Education to attempt to dictate the tax policy for our county.

Additionally, it is once again imperative to get on board with meaningful School Board selection reform, such as SB28 sponsored by Sens. Simonaire and Greenip to allow for a truly elected Board of Education that can represent citizens, parents, and taxpayers alike.