Written by: Amanda Yeager and Cindy Huang
Source: Capital/Gazette
“While we applaud the collaborative efforts made in recent months… we also need to stress that this kind of problem-solving and collaboration are what parents and taxpayers expect from local government and community leaders,” said Allison Pickard, president of the Anne Arundel County Council of PTAs.
Anne Arundel County Council members heard praise Monday night for a proposed fiscal 2018 budget that works to shore up a deficit in the public school system’s health care fund and pays for teacher step increases.
Others urged officials not to stop at that success.
Most of the comments at the council’s first public budget hearing of the year focused on education, as they have in the past. But unlike previous years, in which scores of teachers, parents and other community members have turned out to testify, attendance at Monday’s hearing, held at North County High School in Glen Burnie, was relatively sparse. Testimony lasted only about an hour.
School board member Patricia Nalley, one of the first to speak, said the proposed budget funds “the two most critical issues facing our system” — the health care fund and employee compensation. In her decade on the Board of Education and 40 years working for the school system, she said she has “rarely” seen more collaboration among school officials, county administration and legislators.
“I’m here tonight to say two simple words: thank you,” Nalley said.
County Executive Steve Schuh’s budget proposal includes about $27.5 million to balance the health care fund and another $15.6 million for a step increase — a raise for teachers based on experience — but no money to hire additional teachers and staff for about 750 new students expected in the school system next school year. There’s also no money set aside for step increases for teachers who have been working in the school system since the 2008 to 2009 school year and lost out on raises during the recession, an item the school board requested.
Nalley said she and the board understood that paying for health care and raises “comes with a cost, and that cost is the inability to fund some of the requested positions elsewhere in our budget.”
“That, however, is the case in other departments and agencies across our county as well,” she added.
Others offered more reserved kudos.
“While we applaud the collaborative efforts made in recent months… we also need to stress that this kind of problem-solving and collaboration are what parents and taxpayers expect from local government and community leaders,” said Allison Pickard, president of the Anne Arundel County Council of PTAs.
Pickard urged the council to continue to raise teacher salaries to make the school system more competitive and to focus on reducing class sizes by hiring more teachers.
“I hope that the strong collaborative efforts continue… so we move beyond just shoring up the health care fund and begin to tackle the realities of a successful school system,” she said.
Pam Bukowski, vice president of the Teachers Association of Anne Arundel County, said the teachers’ union “recognize(s) the richness of our benefit and the shared responsibility for the solvency of our health care fund.”