Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Adrienne Jones yesterday named thirteen members to a workgroup that will make recommendations on the pattern and role of state and local funding to the [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education later this year.
MACo President and Harford County Executive Barry Glassman will represent MACo on the panel.
The [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was formed in 2016 to answer two questions: Should the state revise current education funding formulas? And, what major new education policies must be enacted to put Maryland public schools on par with the best in the world?
While the Commission has developed detailed policy recommendations – proposals expected to cost billions of dollars – for counties, most of the ultimate fiscal consequences—and their spillover effect on other public priorities—have yet to be spelled out. Counties expect to be central to the development of any plan to finance, realign, and apportion the costs of these ambitious, but expensive, goals.
Overall, SB 1030 – The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future makes broad policy and programmatic pledges, and begins the course-setting envisioned by the Commission in its years of work. Much of this work still lies ahead.
According to Maryland Matters:
The panel will be tasked with making funding formula recommendations before the 2020 legislative session, including on the split between state and local education funding, prioritizing the order of funding for recommendations of the Kirwan Commission and recommendations for specific funding formulas for some of the specific policies recommended by the commission.
The members of the workgroup are:
- William E. “Brit” Kirwan, chairman of the Kirwan Commission and former chancellor of the University System of Maryland
- MACo President and Harford County Executive Barry Glassman
- Senator Joan Carter Conway, former chair of the Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee
- Matt Gallagher, president of the Goldseker Foundation and former chief of staff to Governor Martin O’Malley
- Sean Johnson, assistant executive director of the Maryland State Educators Association
- Richard Madaleno, Montgomery County budget director and former vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee
- Alvin Thornton, chairman of the Prince George’s County Board of Education
- Del. Maggie McIntosh, chair of the House Appropriations Committee
- Senator Bill Ferguson, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee
- Eloise Foster, former Maryland budget secretary
- Cheryl Pasteur, former principal and member of the Baltimore County Board of Education
- Monique Davis, assistant superintendent for Anne Arundel County Public Schools and former deputy superintendent for Prince George’s County Public Schools
- Maryland Secretary of Budget and Management David Brinkley
County governments share other concerns regarding current education funding law, including the State’s wealth calculation, funding of jurisdictions with declining enrollment, and the effect of nonrecurring costs on “maintenance of effort” calculations. MACo will continue to advocate on these issues through the county membership on the Commission.
The workgroup is expected to make recommendations to the full Kirwan Commission by November 1, 2019.
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Maryland Matters: Workgroup for State Funding Formulas Named
