A new piece of legislation being put forth by the General Assembly could provide Montgomery County with much-needed school construction funds.
The legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Nancy King, D-Montgomery Village, and Del. Sheila Hixson, D-Silver Spring, would create a $20 million pool that would be divided between the five counties in the state that have experienced the largest growth in new students over the past five years. The bill received approval from two legislative committees Friday and will go to the floor of the House and Senate next week as part of this year’s capital budget.
Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties would qualify for the money. The bill could result in an estimated $5.8 million for school construction next year for Montgomery County, according to the General Assembly’s Department of Legislative Services.
King said during a press conference Friday that about 9,300 Montgomery County students are being educated in portable classrooms because of the lack of money to build new schools and classrooms.
Gboyinde Onijala, a spokeswoman for Montgomery County Public Schools, said Friday the school system will maximize the impact of each dollar.
“We’re very grateful for any additional funds we receive from the state,” Onijala said, but added that this amount of money won’t meet the needs to match MCPS’ growth.
From 2013 to 2023 MCPS is expected to add about 12,000 additional students, according to statistics from the Maryland Department of Planning.
“No other district in Maryland is seeing this kind of growth at this time,” Onijala said. She pointed out that the school system already has 22 shovel-ready projects, which could be completed by 2019 with proper funding.
Montgomery County receives about $28.6 million under the current state formula for distributing school construction funds and any funds the school system receives from this legislation would be in addition to that.
When House of Delegates Speaker Michael Busch was asked at the press conference Friday what Gov. Larry Hogan thinks about the $20 million proposal, he said, “We have not had that discussion at this point.”
Hogan’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday afternoon about the proposal.
County Executive Ike Leggett praised the legislation in a statement, “I want to thank the speaker and the members of our delegation who made bringing home additional funds to help us address our public construction issues their number one priority. Passing this legislation shows a commitment to working with Montgomery County to address the ongoing challenges of capacity problems in our schools.
This is the latest effort by the county and other large jurisdictions to obtain more school construction funds from the state.
Last year, the county’s state representatives teamed up with legislators from Prince George’s and Baltimore counties in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a funding mechanism similar to that of Baltimore.
