Before the Montgomery County Council
October 13, 1998
Comments on Spending Affordability MCPS FY 2000
Good evening, President Leggett and Members of the County Council. I am Sharon Cox, President of the Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations. With me tonight is David Koss, chair of our Operating Budget Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to address you this evening concerning the Spending Affordability Guideline for the MCPS FY 2000 Operating Budget.
Every fall MCCPTA urges that when the Council sets its Spending Affordability Guidelines it refrain from setting an arbitrarily low level based on overly conservative economic assumptions. We caution you that to do so will only result in an unreasonably long list of non-recommended cuts accompanying the MCPS operating budget proposal. Furthermore, we argue that setting an inappropriately low spending affordability level fails to take into account any recognition of the unarguable needs of the public school system. The most important of which, we believe, are recited in our operating budget compact. Those needs center on reduction in class size and improvements in classroom-based instruction.
While we appreciate Council staff�s care to present the worst case scenario, MCCPTA�s Operating Budget Committee has seen no convincing economic analysis, concerning the county, the state or the nation, that projects serious economic misfortune in the near term. Granted, recent economic developments in Asia and Russia and the resulting uncertainty in the stock market have given some economists reason for concern. However, action by the Federal Reserve Board to reduce interest rates and maintain nationwide economic growth, underscores the fact that federal policy makers are working diligently (and thus far successfully) to maintain economic momentum for the foreseeable future. While some economists have predicted that Maryland�s economic growth will slow down somewhat in the coming months, a recession is not predicted. Accordingly, an overly conservative spending affordability guideline for the MCPS FY 2000 budget would be not only poor public and educational policy, it would also be the result of bad economics.
We greatly appreciate that you value our educational priorities and have consistently supported them. You, the Executive, the Board of Education, and the Superintendent deserve praise for your work on behalf of the children and young adults attending public school in Montgomery County. We are pleased that our insistence on greater accountability, educational improvements, improved teacher-student ratios, and capital improvements within MCPS, has been recognized as meritorious, and positive action has been taken in each of these areas. Yet, much work remains to be done.
It goes without saying that the spending affordability guideline set this fall by the county council must be no less than equal to the maintenance of effort level; anything less would risk counterproductive reductions in essential state aid. Beyond that, however, a robust economy, locally and nationally; a history of decline in financial support for MCPS, when measured as a percentage of the overall operating budget; and remaining serious unmet needs all demand that the spending affordability level for MCPS be set well above maintenance of effort for FY 2000.
The share of the overall county operating budget devoted to MCPS has declined over time, and the public school system has been forced to stretch dollars, in many instances, past their breaking points. PTA�s are still being asked, contrary to our mission of advocacy, to fund materials and technology that should be provided by the school system. In FY 2000, MCPS may need one billion dollars to meet its most basic responsibilities, not including enterprise funds or grants. A final figure will be available when the work of the citizen budget review groups, the MCPS analysts, and the Board of Education is completed.
When the working sessions of the MFP committee convene, and when the County Council takes its formal actions later this fall on spending affordability, attention should be paid to 1) reversing a history of K-12 education receiving a decreasing percentage of total expenditures; 2) our robust economy; and 3) aligning funding with the educational needs of our children.
No matter what the fiscal climate, public education is an investment that will pay off in social and economic dividends. There is no better hedge against an economic downturn than a good investment.