Inside the School System Budget

The Anne Arundel County Board of Education provides the Budget in Brief on its website as well as the full budget. It is important to note a few things in Dr. Maxwell's proposed $920,050,136 budget:

• $731,486,947 of the budget consists of salaries and benefits; that's nearly 80 percent of the budget spent on personnel. Of that amount
• $40,973,621 is on salary and health care
• $18,500,000 is on retirement benefits
  
• $1,999,137 is being spent on implementing the all-day Kindergarten program. That's not the fault of the local system, but again begs the question as to why the state should require five-year olds to attend school all day.
• Only $2,569,944 is on additional school security.
• Only $3,501,729 is spent on technology upgrades, and of that money a portion is being spent solely on the creation of 17 new technical positions to add to the bureaucracy.
• The Office of the Superintendent alone is budgeted to spend $496,618, to be spent on one Superintendent, 2 secretaries, and office assistant and a newly created "Office of Civil Rights Liaison".
• An Office of Volunteer Services has three full time employees, at a cost of $172,521 to the county.
• The County Coordinator of Athletics will make $101,484.
• There are 1065.20 positions classified as "Administration" or "Mid-Level Administration." There are, however, 4632.30 teachers. This means there are 4.35 teachers for each administrative staff member in the County School System.
  

Peruse the budget for yourself and see what little nuggets you can find.

After looking at the budget, I still think of two things; how irresponsible it is to call for a tax increase given some of the bureaucratic overload on Riva Road, and the continued need for an elected Board of Education...