Taylor: MCPS central office restructuring would provide more in-school support

Administrators union criticizes school system for not following collaborative process

February 4, 2025 11:43 a.m. | Updated: February 4, 2025 3:47 p.m.

Editor’s note: This story, originally published Feb. 4, 2025, at 11:43 a.m., was updated Feb. 4, 2025, at 3:47 p.m., to correct that the proposed $298.7 million increase is the total increase from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2026.

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is planning to cut roughly 80 positions from its central office in a move that Superintendent Thomas Taylor has called “restructuring” and “reculturing” — and one that has received criticism from the union representing administrators.  

“I’m not a particular fan of reorganizations,” Taylor told the Montgomery County school board during a work session Thursday on his proposed $3.61 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year. “We have some structural issues that we need to address to serve schools better, and so really, our efforts are about how we can restructure to create a central services model versus a central office or a central hub model.”  

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According to a budget spreadsheet posted online by MCPS, the reorganization of central office positions would include a cut of 81.5 full-time equivalent positions and would save the district $6.62 million if Taylor’s proposed budget is approved.  

Taylor’s proposed spending plan for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1, represents a nearly 9% increase over current spending. According to a budget spreadsheet shared online by the district, Taylor is requesting $2.4 billion from the county, which is $291 million above the state-mandated maintenance of effort requirement. State law requires the county to provide the district with at least the same amount in local dollars from one year to the next. The maintenance of effort amount for fiscal year 2025 is about $2.1 billion. 

The proposed $298.7 million increase from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2026 comes in the wake of a difficult budget season in 2024 in which the county school board had to make significant cuts. The cuts were needed to close a spending gap after the County Council approved a fiscal year 2025 MCPS operating budget that was $30.5 million less in spending than the school board requested. The operating budget for fiscal year 2025, which ends June 30, is $3.32 billion.    

After several public hearings, work sessions and community meetings, the school board will tentatively approve a budget and send it to County Executive Marc Elrich, who then will include his recommended school budget in his proposed county operating budget. 

Taylor recently told Bethesda Today the employees in those positions wouldn’t be fired and would instead go through a “matchmaking process” to fit them into other positions available in the district. Any salary decreases would depend on the position, but Taylor said MCPS is projecting the same savings from the position cuts.  

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“We feel very confident that there’s more than enough work to do in MCPS that our very talented staff can stay with us if they want to stay with us, although it may not be in the role that they are perfectly in favor of at the moment,” Taylor told the board Thursday. “But we have more than enough for folks to do around here that we will go through the process of landing people with intention.”  

Taylor said there’s been “fair criticism” from the Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals (MCAAP), the union that represents MCPS administrators, for not following a collaborative process with the union concerning the fate of the positions.  

During a Jan. 27 public hearing on the budget, MCAAP Executive Vice President Ryan Forkert said the district didn’t discuss the reorganization with the employees it would impact and the process didn’t involve a collaborative team with the union. Forkert said the lack of collaboration has left administrators in limbo.  

MCAAP Executive Director Edward Owusu said cutting positions would lead to inequitable workloads and pay disparities and has created fear in administrators for what may come moving forward. 

“We’re disappointed, and the decision not to follow the process has had a rippling impact,” Owusu said during the Jan. 27 public hearing. 

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Some of those 80 employees who previously served in positions that were cut would be shifting to work in the “cross-functional teams” Taylor has proposed in his budget. The cluster-assigned teams would include subject matter experts to support schools, Taylor explained.  

Taylor said the teams would include instructional support, such as a special education coordinator and an elementary literacy specialist, and non-instructional support, such as a security cluster coordinator. 

“We’re a learning organization, and when we do things for people, we sometimes miss the objective of what we’re trying to do,” Taylor said Thursday. “And oftentimes we’ve been put in a position where we have provided fish for people instead of teaching them how to fish.”  

Taylor said reviewing the structure of central office, which has nearly 3,000 employees, would take more time than just this year.  

“I’m not particularly thrilled about having to do this over a two-year period. I think that that’s perhaps even unnecessarily messy, but to do this well requires a lot of deliberate attention and working with our association partners and going through process steps,” Taylor said.   

He said during the Thursday work session that pausing the review of central office work “to follow those processes,” with MCAAP is “critically important.”  

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