The Governor’s proposed cuts to education funding are already threatening to put additional pressure on county budgets, as local school boards begin to submit their budget requests to county governments. County and state governments share financial responsibility for K-12 education funding in Maryland. As state funding declines (either from formula amounts of prior year actual funding levels), MACo anticipates that school boards will turn to county governments to make them whole.

In Charles County, a $25 million budgetary increase this year would fund two step increases for teachers.  As described,

Citing education cuts in Gov. Larry Hogan’s budget proposal, Paul T. Balides, assistant superintendent of finance and business, told the board Tuesday the school system will request $25.6 million from the county, an ambitious amount considering the county furnished around $3 million in fiscal 2015.

A significant portion of the funding request — $13.2 million — will be stored for negotiations with the teachers union, the Education Association of Charles County, and would fund the missed step increases.

For more information on the Governor’s proposed cuts to education and how they affect local school boards, see our previous post, Maryland Boards of Education Release County-by-County List of Funding Cuts.

For more information on Charles County’s budget, see MACo’s county information page that links to each county’s school board budget, and see the full story from Southern Maryland News Online here.