My Two Cents: Thank You MCPS

January 8, 2015 12:30 p.m.

My Two Cents is a weekly opinion column from Bethesda resident Joseph Hawkins. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BethesdaNow.com.
On Monday, Montgomery County Public Schools OpenDataMCPS mirrors OpenMontgomery, which is not an accident — both sites are operated by the same vendor.
Montgomery County government’s initiative to provide county residents with access to all sorts of data, including county employee salaries, restaurant food inspection results, contracts, and budgets has won praise. All of the data files on OpenMontgomery are downloadable.
At this time, MCPS cannot compete with OpenMontgomery in terms of the quantity of data files, but this is a new direction for MCPS — one that I have pushed for over many years. It’s also something I criticized the school system for not doing in August.
I believe MCPS should be thanked for taking things in the right direction.
Look, anything that is downloadable to an Excel file deserves a thank you. So, I downloaded the newly proposed Fiscal Year 2016 budget from Superintendent Joshua Starr into an Excel file, sorted the thing, and in a matter of seconds, found lots of interesting tidbits:

  • MCPS is requesting $150,240 worth of ice cream. That’s a lot of ice cream.
  • MCPS is requesting just $70,262 for student field trips. With 154,000 students that’s a mere 45 cents per kid.  
  • MCPS is requesting $81,500 for the George B. Thomas Learning Center (also known as “Saturday School”) for supplies and materials. That brings up interesting questions about MCPS directly supporting a nonprofit.
  • MCPS is requesting a boatload of cash for various consultants.  That tab adds up to $1,194,512.
  • MCPS also is requesting slightly more than $2.7 million for employee overtime. How does that compare to previous years?

The important thing, at least for now, is I was able to access this information and I was able to do so easily in about five minutes.
I found all kinds of interesting ways MCPS proposes spending money for FY 16. This sure beats reading through hardcopy paper documents and is a promising change for the school system.
Thanks MCPS.
Joseph Hawkins is a longtime Bethesda resident who remembers when there was no Capital Crescent Trail. He works full-time for an employee-owned social science research firm located Montgomery County. He is a D.C. native and for nearly 10 years, he wrote a regular column for the Montgomery Journal. He also has essays and editorials published in Education Week, the Washington Post, and Teaching Tolerance Magazine. He is a serious live music fan and is committed to checking out some live act at least once a month.

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