Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said Thursday he is not recommending an increase in property taxes to fund his proposed $7.1 billion operating budget for the coming fiscal year, which includes the highest spending ever proposed for county schools.
“There was nothing frivolous. We’re not building a racetrack or some other nonsense. We were just focused on delivering services to people,” Elrich said while announcing his budget proposal at a press conference at the County Executive Office Building in Rockville. The proposal now heads to the County Council for consideration.
Elrich’s proposal represents a 4.9% increase from the current fiscal year’s budget. The proposed budget for fiscal year 2025, which starts July 1, includes $3.3 billion for Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), funding 98.2% of the county school board’s request. The total school spending represents a $107 million increase over spending in the current fiscal year, but also represents about a $60 million cut in the school board’s funding request, according to board documents. The proposal also includes full funding for Montgomery College’s $334 million request.
“While we have a record amount of money on a per pupil basis for the upcoming year, when you compare it to inflation-adjusted dollars, we’re still not quite up to the level we were in the timeframe right before the Great Recession,” said Rich Madaleno, the county’s chief administrative officer.
Board of Education President Karla Silvestre told MoCo360 on Thursday the board is “optimistic that [it] can close the gap and not have to make additional reductions.
“This is not a typical year,” Silvestre said, noting the impending loss of federal COVID-19 funding that will dry up in the coming school year. “But it is a new normal.”
She noted the district will be dealing with no longer “having the federal funding to finally [pay] the teachers what they deserve – but we have to honor those contracts.” The district also will be dealing with inflation; paying for costs related to implementing the state’s school improvement law, Blueprint for Maryland’s Future; and finding ways to continue mental health services for students.
Silvestre said the board likely will focus on reductions to the district’s central office spending. “We have been trying to not touch the schools–all the reductions have been in central office,” she said. “We want to come as close as possible to fully funding our budget so that we don’t have to go into the schools and cut their budgets as well.”
While the proposed schools budget is higher than in previous years, the Montgomery County Education Association, the union that represents MCPS teachers, released a statement criticizing Elrich’s budget Thursday afternoon.
“We are disappointed that County Executive Elrich, a former teacher who as an elected leader has previously been a champion of public education, has proposed a budget for MCPS that does not honor the Board of Education’s already insufficient request,” the statement said.
“Decision-makers continue to under-resource educators and force educators to do more with less. They then criticize us when students struggle to make academic gains because we cannot provide enough support.”
Funding services while facing challenges
Elrich’s proposed budget includes a $169.4 million investment in increasing and preserving the county’s supply of affordable housing, as well as $365 million to be spent fighting climate change. It also expands public safety programming, as well as workforce development initiatives.
The county is facing significant challenges this budget season now that federal COVID-19 relief funds are drying up, particularly when it comes to programs that were funded by those grants. Officials said Thursday that Elrich took a prudent approach with his proposed budget in order to prepare for a potential recession.
Elrich said he and his staff had to be financially strategic when selecting which COVID-era programs would continue, and this meant being realistic about what they could fund. For example, the county couldn’t fund rental assistance at the same level it was because it won’t receive the same amount of federal funding, but could continue food insecurity programs.
“Those were enormous sums of money–we could not have found that money absent a serious tax increase or cutting other programs,” Elrich said. “You’re not [going to] take it out of schools, you’re not [going to] take it out of police and fire. So as soon as you take those things off the table, you wind up taking it from some other agency that delivers services that people want.”
Here are some of the other highlights of Elrich’s proposed budget:
Housing
- $24 million in rental assistance funding;
- A $3 million increased investment in homelessness services
Public safety
- Expansion of the Montgomery County police department’s Drone As First Responder program, including new drones servicing Bethesda, Gaithersburg and Germantown;
- Hiring of a recruiter to help fill vacancies in the police department;
- Continuation of signing bonus program for police recruits;
- Funds to help businesses develop late night safety plans;
- Early screenings for cancer among first responders;
- Investment in garnering women and girls’ interest in firefighting, including a summer fire camp for girls;
- Full funding for the Pre-Release Center, which helps people in corrections facilities prepare for careers
Economic development
- $27 million investment in economic development and business expansion, including funding of a BioHub to train residents for careers in the life sciences and a new grant program for small businesses to establish themselves
Other services
- $22.6 million for childcare under the Early Care and Education Initiative;
- $17.1 million for food insecurity programs;
- Funding for two additional mobile crisis teams to respond to mental health emergencies;
- Funds for the launch of the Great Seneca Transit Network;
- Funds for enforcement of county plastic bag tax
Elrich is required under county law to deliver his proposed budget by March 15 to the council. Community members will be able to comment on the budget during public hearings at 1:30 and 7 p.m. on April 8 and 9 before the council, which will hold several work sessions prior to voting on the budget sometime in May.
“Budgets aren’t simply spending plans; they are moral documents that demonstrate our collective priorities,” Council President Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) wrote in a statement released after the budget was presented Thursday. “As we work toward our shared fiscal and policy goals, transparency and accountability will be our governing doctrine.”
During the press conference, Elrich touted his support for state legislation that would allow Maryland jurisdictions to create special taxing districts to fund certain projects, like the state of Virginia does.
“Putting money in infrastructure that makes people want to come to where you’re trying to attract them is an investment, and we continue to lag because we don’t have the resources to do this,” Elrich said.
He said the county needs to be creative in moving forward to address budgetary concerns and not stay stuck in doing things the way the county has always done them.
“If there’s somebody doing it better than us, we need to learn from it,” Elrich said. “We do not have to be obsessed with Montgomery County. Sometimes that way gets us lost.”
MoCo360 reporter Elia Griffin contributed reporting to this story.
