Wednesday • August 28, 2019
2019 HCPSS Budget Decisions Coming Back to Haunt Us
By Steven Keller
Let’s look at the recent 2019 school budget decisions at the County Executive and County Council levels that will severely reduce support staff for students across Howard County:
The County Council voted 3-2 back in May/June to only provide HCPSS with only 2 out of the requested 8 million dollars it needed in the 2020 school budget to avoid severely reducing support staff and elementary tech staff.
In April, County Executive Calvin Ball proposed a $605.2 million operating budget for Howard schools — $84 million less than the school board had requested.
Board of Education 2019 budget decisions include the following:
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Reduction of 76 general education paraeducator positions, including 15 middle school math and 5 middle school reading paraeducator positions
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Reduction of 20.2 elementary instructional technology teachers; addition of 3.7 elementary library media specialist positions
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Reduction of 11.6 reading support teacher positions
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Reduction of 11.6 math support teacher positions
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Reduction of 10 math instructional support teacher positions
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Reduction of 15 pool teacher positions
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Reduction of $1.5 million from utilities
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Reduction of $150,000 from the Print Services fund
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Systemwide reductions in supplies
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Reduction of 3 central office positions
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Reducing increases for all central office staff not covered by bargaining units, and freezing increases for those earning above $125,000/year
Instead of offering more support to struggling students, Superintendent Martirano and members of the County Council are insisting that HCPSS redistrict over 7300 students to distant schools…..schools that at the same time have been forced to implement drastic cuts to their existing support staff due to these budget decisions starting at the County Executive level.
