The Harford County Board of Education has once again pulled from school system reserve funds to cover recurring costs due to funding gaps left by state formula, while county government contributions in Harford are now $27M more than required and $86M more than the State’s projections.

On Monday the Harford County Board of Education voted, once again, to access reserve funds for ongoing school costs to cover funding shortfalls in the local school system. The county budget reflects a $27M increase from the required state allocation and $86M more that the state has projected the county share of education costs to be. Even with these increase the school system continues to need to make adjustments due to funding shortfalls.

A recent Baltimore Sun article shared alarming concerns from the school system:

Despite this influx, school officials warn of a looming $60 million budget shortfall driven by rising special education costs, inflation, and utility expenses. The district has already eliminated 167 positions and canceled summer school as part of cost-cutting measures.

As previously covered on Conduit Street, eliminating positions and cutting programs to adhere to requirements set out by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future appears to be increasing class sizes in more jurisdictions than Harford county. The student to teacher ratio increases seen in Carroll County earlier this year was a major driver in the local board requesting and receiving a funding requirement timeline extension from the State’s Accountability and Implementation Board for education reform.

When brought up for discussion during education and budget deliberations during the legislative session, democratic leadership reiterated that the Blueprint reform plan was never meant to concern itself with class sizes and that they were not an indication of success or failure of the plans outcomes.