Howard County continues the string of jurisdictions where the school system, citing rising costs and the Blueprint mandate, are seeking a large county funding increase well above State-mandated funding levels. The FY 2026 proposed budget includes $107 million more than the county’s required “Maintenance of Effort” level.
In a demonstrable trend affecting large and small counties, Howard County schools are the latest to request a substantial increase in county funding, as they continue to work toward the goals of the State’s decade-long, ambitious plan for education, the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. That plan calls on school systems to refocus many funds and resources on several pillars to boost equity and outcomes across schools statewide.
Under State law, each county is required to fund the greater of its calculated local share of the Blueprint’s shared costs, or the same per-pupil funding amount from the proper budget year (known colloquially as “Maintenance of Effort”). Howard County, in recent years, has exceed its own Maintenance of Effort as it has prioritized education funding, and has set its own MOE bar substantially above its share of the Blueprint funding requirement. Despite this generosity, the schools are seeking an increase that dwarfs the county’s own projections for total new revenue in the year ahead, estimated at around $58 million.
Documents from the late February meeting of the Howard County Board of Education are available online.
In a letter to the Board, reported by the Baltimore Sun, County Executive Calvin Ball called the request “surprising … unattainable and unaffordable.”
With the General Assembly’s final decisions on legislation affecting both the State’s own formulas and requirements for school funding as well as its own budget with potential major effects on county revenues and expenses – the FY 2026 budget process has been fraught with higher than usual degrees of uncertainty.
The County Executive is required to present a proposed county budget, including its share for the public schools, by April 20. Typically, the county holds a public hearing on the in-development budget in the month of March, in advance of the initial budget release. The General Assembly’s 90-day session is not set to conclude until April 7.
