Carroll’s budget priorities and challenges discussed by commissioners and school board

The Board of Carroll County Commissioners spent Monday afternoon discussing budget priorities and challenges associated with implementing The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform law, with the Board of Education.

The state law’s many ambitious initiatives include universal prekindergarten for low-income families, improving career readiness for high school graduates, and shifting resources to better serve students eligible for compensatory education. The Blueprint fundamentally aims to send more resources to students who need them — such as those living in high concentrations of poverty. The legislation also has guidelines for assisting children who have not received the special education services they require, especially during the pandemic, and providing compensatory education services.

Each year of Blueprint’s 10-year rollout comes with its own set of spending mandates, Assistant Superintendent of Operations and Carroll County Blueprint Coordinator Jon O’Neal told board members. Fiscal year 2025, which begins on July 1, is a relatively smooth step in the implementation path, he said.

“For whatever reason, the lowest increase comes in [fiscal 2025] and then after that it jumps up, and in some years, it really jumps up,” O’Neal said.

Fiscal 2026 represents a funding leap in part because a $60,000 salary minimum for teachers must be in place by fiscal 2027. O’Neal said building policies that enable Carroll County to enact the salary increase puts a lot of pressure on both boards.

The school system’s initial proposed operating budget for fiscal 2025 includes an anticipated $7.8 million increase in state funds and an expected request for a $17.9 million increase in county funds compared to the current fiscal year.

The revenue increase represents a $19.2 million increase for employee salaries, $6.9 million for inflation, $4.6 million for technology, $2 million for special education, $700,000 in state Blueprint requirements and $400,000 for transportation.

A new Blueprint-prescribed funding formula has also been implemented, O’Neal said, which reduces per-pupil funding but supplies increased services for compensatory education, special education and English learner students.

Despite prior warnings, the restrictive nature of Blueprint for Maryland’s Future will not require Carroll County to move large numbers of teachers from some schools to staff others, Superintendent Cynthia McCabe said at the meeting.

“There does seem to be growing understanding at the state level that there needs to be reasonableness in Blueprint implementation,” McCabe said.

“Local boards of education cannot be penalized for working through the process of implementation and compliance over time,” McCabe added. “And that’s the key — over time. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have to comply in time, but the drastic shifts and resources and staffing will be allowed to be phased in rather than being made in one year. Therefore, you do not see anything in our fiscal 2025 request associated with mitigating the compliance with compensatory education funding or for other special population areas.”

District 1 Commissioner Joseph Vigliotti said it would be better to give the county more control over the methods used to achieve results, rather than implementing Blueprint’s mandates.

“If there are certain goals and certain areas that we have to reach, instead of telling us exactly how we get there, we can do it our own way,” Vigliotti said. “That would be a far better way to be able to implement Blueprint.”

District 2 Commissioner Ken Kiler, president of that board, said he hopes the county will be able to implement a creative alternative to Blueprint’s teacher time-split policy, which mandates that teachers spend at most 60% of their time delivering in-classroom instruction to students. The remaining 40% is intended to be used for planning, professional development and other initiatives. Kiler, a former school board president, said he does not think an alternative to that policy will be likely.

School board member Steve Whisler said Blueprint’s prekindergarten requirement is among his concerns. The Blueprint mandates pre-K be provided as part of a public-private partnership, in which half of students are served by accredited private entities and half are served by the school system. However, Carroll, like most counties, received a waiver for not meeting the 2023 benchmark of having 30% of pre-K capacity provided by private entities. That benchmark will increase by 5% every year until it reaches 50%.

“If we can’t find enough partnerships, I’m not sure where the capital money’s going to come from to ensure that brick-and-mortar space for those pre-K environments,” Whisler said.

“]

Board members expressed their intention to continue quarterly joint meetings, which would make Monday’s meeting the first of four in 2024.