Montgomery County Board of Education President Patricia O’Neill asked the county’s state legislators Wednesday if they could help eliminate tolls for county school buses that drive on the state-operated Intercounty Connector.
A Montgomery County Public Schools spokeswoman said in an email Friday the school system spends nearly $18,000 per year on ICC tolls. Buses that typically use the ICC include those for cross-county special education routes and sports trips, according to spokeswoman Gboyinde Onijala.
“It would help us a great deal to make a more efficient transportation system for the 100,000 students we transport every day if we could use the ICC without paying a toll,” O’Neill said during Wednesday’s legislative priorities meeting with state legislators in Rockville.
However, spokesman John Sales said in an email Friday that the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) is governed by a trust agreement for the benefit of its bondholders and that under the agreement county-owned buses are required to pay the tolls.
Drivers who are permitted free passage on the ICC include state employees “while they are in the discharges of their official duties,” elected officials and emergency workers, according to the trust agreement.
O’Neill told the county’s delegates and state senators that buses don’t use the road very often due to the toll. The $2.3 billion highway that connects I-270 in Gaithersburg with I-95 in Laurel first opened in 2011.
O’Neill’s request came as she pleaded with legislators to fight for additional school construction funds in Annapolis.
“Typically we assume we’re getting $40 million [in state funds]—that’s not enough,” O’Neill said. “We’re very worried that pot might shrink and that would be terrible for us.”
She said the school system’s budget took a sizable hit last year when Gov. Larry Hogan declined to release the county’s approximately $17.7 million share of the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) funds. Hogan instead plans to use the $68 million typically budgeted for GCEI as a contribution to the state’s pension system.
The GCEI funds are provided to school districts where the cost to educate students is higher than in other districts. The county’s General Assembly delegation has been battling with the Republican governor over his unwillingness to release the GCEI funds since he withheld them in May.
O’Neill sent a letter to Nov. 16 to Hogan explaining the county’s need for additional school construction funds.
“We expect enrollment to increase by 10,000 students in the next decade,” O’Neill wrote. “This is why it is essential that the state not only maintain the $250 million previously set aside for school construction but rather increase it. We account for over 17 percent of the student population in the state, but only receive approximately 12 percent of the state’s construction funds.”
On Wednesday, O’Neill said the school system’s $2.3 billion annual budget has been reduced “to the bone” and that any reductions would negatively affect the school system’s operations.
