Montgomery Co. schools $3.6B budget proposal would add special education jobs, cut central office roles – WTOP News

Thomas Taylor unveiled his first budget proposal as Montgomery County’s superintendent Wednesday, detailing a $3.61 billion package that would add hundreds of special education jobs while cutting dozens of central office roles.

The proposal calls for almost $300 million more than the Maryland school district’s fiscal 2025 spending plan. The increase would cover investments in security and costs to implement parts of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, the state’s education reform plan.

“We’re not asking for a budget that is going to be innovative,” Taylor said during the budget presentation. “We’re not asking for a budget that is actually going to move MCPS light-years ahead. That’s not this budget. This is a broccoli budget. This is a budget that fills holes. This is a budget that solves problems.”

The plan would add 688 roles for special education classroom teachers and paraprofessionals, which Taylor described as essential, because the school division isn’t currently staffing special education in accordance with the guidelines it should be.

“We are very behind in how we meet the needs of our students with disabilities,” Taylor said.

The budget includes almost 50 positions to help emergent multilingual learners, another group where there are “big gaps that need to be addressed,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, the spending plan would add 52 security positions and allocates $40 million to address underfunding of the division’s self-insured employee benefits plan.

Calling it “a big ask,” Taylor said the plan includes a 3.25% pay increase for staff, which is in line with what county government workers are requesting.

In a statement, the Montgomery County Education Association, the union representing over 14,000 teachers, counselors and other school workers in the county, said the budget acknowledges issues and details plans to fix them.

“This is a budget that provides hope to thousands of students, families, and educators, who are committed to Montgomery County schools and need to see those commitments reciprocated,” union President David Stein said.

The proposal includes nearly $11 million to implement some of the requirements tied to the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, specifically in helping the county expand its pre-K offerings.

It notably calls for the school division’s central office to be reorganized, a move that would cut 81 jobs and save the county about $7 million.

Taylor called that part of the proposal a “hard reduction. This is trying to honor our commitment to being better stewards of our taxpayer dollars and to find ways in which we can serve the community better with a more streamlined Central Services.”

The plan doesn’t consider class sizes, because Taylor said the county needs to review its staffing standards, “and we need to figure out what is the right class size for MCPS.”

By 2035, Taylor said for every graduate, the school division will reimburse families for costs of remedial math or literacy classes at Montgomery College.

“This is a bold commitment. But if we do our job well, this is for the low, low cost of zero,” Taylor said.

Also by 2035, Taylor wants every county school to achieve a four- or five-star rating on the Maryland Report Card.

The school board has to approve the spending plan before it gets sent to the county executive.

The proposal, Taylor said, “doesn’t solve problems completely, but it definitely puts us on the path to solving a lot of those problems.”

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